


What You Did To Me

by TheCarrot



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Stiles, Derek kicks Stiles out of the pack, Gen, Hunter Stiles Stilinski, It's a bad idea, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Minor Character Death, Mysterious Bad Guy, Nemeton, Original Character(s), Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 10:01:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2105511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCarrot/pseuds/TheCarrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For anon over on Tumblr who asked: "If you're doing the whole prompt thing..? I would love if you could do a fic where derek kicks stiles out of the pack or something? Or a hs au where derek bullies stiles? Idk I just want angst. "</p><p>--</p><p>Derek kicks Stiles out of the pack, and pays the price for it later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Stiles looks up from the blade he’s rubbing against the wet-stone on the table in front of him when the sound of the motel door opening draws his attention to the person entering. The hunter pauses, frowning as he looks up at the older man standing inside his doorway before Stiles reaches across the table for a rag to dry off his blade.

“What is it?” Stiles mutters, an edge of annoyance creeping into his voice at having to deal with the hunter for hire. He’s ready to get his team and hit the road. 

The hunter flinches, watching as Stiles moves his arm, the knife disappearing somewhere onto his persons. “W-we found the wolf pack sir.”

Stiles’ raises an eyebrow but is on his feet in an instant, pulling a duffel bag out from under the motel bed. Opening it he eyes the weapons inside before grabbing a P-90. “Status?”

“Within the Preserve, sir. Word has it they’re on route to engaging the flock of harpies.” 

Nodding, Stiles takes his car keys and motions for the other hunter to leave. “Ready your hunters and make sure you surround the area. My team and I will deal with the harpies; they’ve killed a few kids already so we don’t want to leave them hanging around.”

“A-and the pack sir?” The other hunter asks quietly, unnerved in the younger man’s presence despite being older. He has heard stories of Stiles and has never wanted to come across the boy. 

Pausing Stiles thinks back to the faces of the wolves that used to be his friends. “We’re only here for one of them…If the rest were smart, they’d run away when they heard us coming.”

\--

‘It’s not a matter of want Stiles, it’s a matter of need. You’re human, and we can’t keep distracting ourselves trying to protect you.”

Stiles stared straight ahead, eyes wide as the Alpha glared back at him. “What are you saying?” he heard the words but still couldn’t grasp at what Derek was saying.

Derek huffed dramatically while behind him, Peter was sitting on the spiral staircase staring at his nephew in what, for him, was shock. “I’m telling you to go away Stiles. Stop hanging around the pack, stop associating with us because we don’t need you anymore.”

It felt like the rug had been swept out from underneath him. “You can’t tell me who I can and can’t hang out with Derek.” Stiles snapped; there was no way would Scott stand for this. “I’m not one of your beta’s that you can control-”

“Exactly.” Derek snapped, “If you were my beta you would follow my instructions in a fight and we’d be fine,” Stiles snorted at this but Derek just continued. “But right now you’re just a loose canon and we can’t take that kind of risk. From now on Peter will do any research we need,”

Stiles opened his mouth to object but the Alpha cut him off again. “I’ve already spoken to Scott.” 

Brown eyes widened. “W-what?” Scott too?

Derek nodded, gaze hard. “He and his mother are going away for a week, and they’ve already agreed that when they come back they’ll be keeping you out of this.”

“This?” Stiles voice cracked.

“Everything; we’ll be keeping you away from the pack, away from the werewolves, the hunters and Allison, even Deaton’s agreed to stop teaching you.”

Stiles refused to admit his eyes were watering, but he could already feel a familiar tightness in his chest. “Derek, no, you can’t do this…”

“I can and I have. Go away Stiles, we don’t need you anymore.”

\--

Stiles pulls the Tahoe over on a familiar stretch of back road that leads to the Preserve. Outside another dark SUV pull’s up beside him and two men along with a shorter woman, each armed to the teeth, climb out of the other vehicle. Stiles taps the Bluetooth in his ear, turning it off so he is only addressing the three in front of him and not the extra hunters he had had on the phone. “Now, we take out the harpies, long range weapons and fire are our best offence against them. Try to ration the cocktails to one per animal and if they’re lit on fire move on, it only takes three minutes for them to be fully engulfed. Afterwards we’ll be tracking down the Beta werewolf,” 

The Hunter checks his phone before holding it up showing them the picture on the screen. “Meet Liam Dunbar, 16 years old, blonde hair and light coloured eyes. Extremely dangerous, it’s unclear why he was bitten as according to his file, his physiologist has diagnosed him with Intense Explosive Disorder.”

“So the kids basically a walking time bomb?” The woman, only a few years older than Stiles, speaks up. 

“Basically,” Stiles shakes his head, pocketing his phone. “Prang brings up a good point though, This close to the full moon Dunbar is going to be even more dangerous than ever. We corral him into a desolated area and take him down there; civilian casualties while improbable, are not an option here.”

The group of hunters around him nod and start checking their weapons once more. 

“What about the Alpha? He’ll probably be out with his Beta.” The oldest hunter, Barello, asks. 

“Leave him to me,” Stiles growls eyeing the older man, moonlight reflecting in his normally light brown eyes. “Hale is no longer the Alpha, and from what I know, the new Alpha is a True Alpha. You don’t have to worry about McCall, but if it comes down to it I know to deal with him.”

Gallagher, the last hunter in the group, smirks and accepts the statement without another question. He’s heard rumours about his leader from before he joined him, and his reputation with the McCall pack. It brings a sizzle to his fingers knowing he might witness a showdown between the two old friends.

“Move out.” Stiles orders turning his back on his group. “Radio in your position when you find them.”

\--

Studies show that the majority of children who grow up with only one parent after the tragic loss of the other, either fall off the sane wagon during their youth, or exceed any and all expectations by doing well, in a last bid attempt to try and regain normalcy or acquiring justice. 

Stiles would like to find out what happens to children who suffer the tragic loss of both parents, years apart, when both incidents are the child’s fault. (He’d also like to torch those studies along with the people who took them but alas, he’s in the middle of a hospital and he doesn’t want to take the chance that they’d be saved.) 

The white draped body in front of him hides his fathers face but Stiles can still see the terribly familiar outline of his body. Tomorrow, the Sheriff of Beacon Hills will be laid to rest with full honours and a true 21 gun salute in remembrance of the dozen lives he saved. 

Lives he unknowingly saved from a group of goblins that the pack hadn’t tracked down fast enough because they couldn’t work together in order to know where to look. Stiles had found their nest two days after their arrival but none of the wolves would even listen to him. Not even Scott; not even Melissa, whom upon seeing the paramedics working on the Sheriff’s dying body, excused herself and Stiles hadn’t seen her since. 

Now, Stiles has to learn how to live without both of his parents, the last of his family. There’s no one else now except for him, his father was an only child and his mothers family as far as he knows is just a bunch of ghosts. He had once thought the pack would be his new family, but now, now Stiles chalked that feeling up to watching too much of Lilo & Stitch that weekend. 

With no more tears left to cry Stiles stepped back and out of the morgue with only one thing on his mind.

He needs to get out of Beacon Hills. 

Unfortunately, there stands a group of familiar faces in the hallway he just stepped into. 

\--

The preserve is quiet, as it always was, and even if there is a fight going on somewhere in it’s depth the sounds are swallowed by the trees. Animals scurry in the undergrowth and everywhere age old magic swirls in the air around them. The group of hunters is sticking close to their leader, far enough away to be searching another part of the forest but Stiles can see the tiny red dots of GPS laden cell phones to know that his group is staying in close formation in case of an emergency.

Stiles has to smile at the thought of his team mates. He had never wanted to be a hunter, never wanted to take a life. Keeping his loved ones safe and out of harms way was his number one priority, but in a fit of idiocy, Stiles had let Derek rip it all away from him. Stiles should have stayed, should have fought harder when Derek said he wasn’t needed, proved he was worthy of the pack, but at the time, and even now, all Stiles can really feel is anger. Anger and hatred boiling up inside; so much that it’s almost a cold-blooded rage inside of his veins. The friends he has now have risked life and limb for him and he has done the same in return.

He can feel the air and ground around him reverberate and mix with the energy swirling inside of himself; however feint Stiles has let his spark become by saving it only for emergencies. Morrell had been kind enough when he had left Beacon Hills years ago, to find him and take him under her wing. She had taught him the basics of his magic, offensive spells he could wield along with defensive ones he could cast on his hunters. She had even gone as far as to teach him several highly dangerous ones as well. However she too, like many other important people in his life, had fallen one cold winters day while helping her brother and the Hale Pack. Stiles’ has never forgiven Deaton for getting his mentor killed and he doesn’t plan too; just like he will never forgive Scott, Derek or the Pack.

“Stiles.” The Bluetooth in Stiles’ ear came alive and next to him Prang stops where she had been walking. “We found ‘em.”

Stiles inhales sharply hearing the Harpies screeching over the call and then again in the distance. “Converge on Gallagher’s position, radio silence until then, we don’t want to alert them to our presence!” 

\--

“You all have a lot of nerve to be showing up here.” Stiles stated, voice cold as he looked over at Scott and Allison; Erica, Boyd and Isaac wouldn’t even meet his eyes but he could see the dejected way they were holding themselves behind their Alpha. Derek stood stonily in front of everyone, a look of twisted agony on his face. Next to Derek, Peter stood off to the side, like he didn’t want to get involved but wouldn’t miss the soon to be fight for the world, and even Chris fucking Argent was standing beside the pack with Lydia, looking somber. 

“Stiles-” Scott started but Stiles whipped around facing his best friend and Scott’s voice drained out of him. Literally. Scott’s eyes went wide with panic when he tried to speak but no sound would come out. 

“I’m sorry, did you have something to say Scotty?” Stiles snapped meanly watching the Pack tense around him, “Mrs. McCall should have taught you that it’s not nice to lie Scott.” 

“That’s enough Stiles,” Derek snapped stepping forward taking the heat away from the Beta.

“Really Derek?” Stiles scoffed feeling his Spark roll inside of him in anger, wanting to lash out at the Alpha and everyone next to him. At everyone who had abandoned him. “You think you can tell me what to do now?” The teenager took a step forward and it was only the wolf inside of Derek that kept the Alpha from taking one back. “After everything you said to me, after you failed AGAIN, and got another person killed! GOT MY FATHER KILLED!” 

Derek whimpered in the back of his throat lowly at the remark. “What, you thought I wouldn’t blame you?! How idiotic of a werewolf are you?” Stiles stepped closer, Erica and Isaac parting on each side of him in deference to his anger. “You wouldn’t listen to me asshole! You kicked me out of your pack. And to what, protect me? Prove a point as to how much better werewolves are to humans?”

“You could have been killed!” Derek growled back, unable to find the words he wanted to shout back at Stiles, to explain to the boy, even if it was too late to try. 

Silence fell over the group for a moment and Stiles stared in shock at Derek his stomach feeling like it had dropped out of his body. And to think, he had once harboured a crush on the man. “Well, congratulations Derek.” Stiles’ voice was ice cold, no emotion other than grief seeping through. “I didn’t die.”

Around him the pack let out an involuntary whine at the discontent coming from the teen. It was something they all felt, had felt the moment Derek told them what he had done to Stiles; the feeling akin to that of a thread being snapped. 

“I didn’t die.” Stiles continued and Derek narrowed his eyes at the boy in front of him who merely chuckled humourlessly under his breath before lifting his own hollowed out gaze to the Alpha’s. “You wouldn’t let me die because it would have been to merciful for you wouldn’t it?”

Allison and Lydia inhaled sharply, taking each others hand and even Chris took a step forward, as if to try and pull Stiles away from the catastrophe Derek and Scott had created. 

“You couldn’t stand the idea of me could you? Did I repulse you that much? That you did nothing! That you sat there and let my father die! The last person I loved-” Stiles broke off and he just wanted to rip into the wolf in front of him. 

“Stiles.” Derek whispered gaze falling to the floor, “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

Whiskey brown eyes floated over Derek’s face, then to the faces of the pack around him. “Derek.” Derek dared to look up. “If you, or any of you for that matter, show up at the funeral tomorrow, I’ll have you arrested.”

\--

Stiles hates harpies, hates with a capital firebomb. He watches as the last one falls out of the sky, flames going out as the creature crumbles to ash before hitting the ground. Wiping a drop of sweat off his cheek with his shoulder Stiles and his hunters turn to the group of slowly healing werewolves behind them. 

Scott and Isaac are clutching open gaping wounds the furthest away from him while Erica, Boyd and a dark haired girl who has Hale written all over her, huddle in a wolfed out little group a few feet away. A set of twins are standing in front of a younger boy whom Stiles assumes by process of elimination, will end up being his target.

Derek, who was back to back with Allison during the fight, the two making the biggest dent in the harpies out of everyone, turns to face him looking like he’s seen a ghost. Actually, the entire pack look like they’ve seen a ghost. 

Stiles smiles. It still hurts to look at them. “Hale.”

“Stiles?” Scott stumbles forward but Prang who is directly to Stiles’ right quickly brings up her gun to take out his femur making the now True Alpha hit the forest floor with a loud cry. 

“SCOTT!” Isaac and Allison both rush to their lover.

Stiles smirks at Prang before looking back at Derek, shrugging his shoulder as if to say ‘what can you do, reflexes’. The older Hale growls, his eyes flashing bright blue, and doesn’t Stiles take a bit too much joy out of that. “What the hell are you doing Stiles?” Derek cries out. 

“Working.” Stiles replies moving over towards the two twins who very clearly step closer together in front of his target. “Now I have to admit, this is a surprise, Ethan and Aiden wasn’t it? How’s Voltron wolf going- oh wait?” Stiles snickers under his breath as they both flash their blue eyes at him, just like Derek had. “That’s right I forgot, you can’t do that anymore can you? This is really just the Pack of former Alphas isn’t it?”

Fangs snarl all around the clearing but Stiles doesn’t budge. 

“Now, I’ve only come here for the Dunbar kid.” Stiles states waving his hands expecting both Ethan and Aiden to move. When neither of them do Stiles motions over his shoulder, “Barello.”

A shot goes off and Boyd pushes Erica out of the way taking the bullet that was meant for her torso to his shoulder. Barello grumbles under his breath and takes aim again. Only this time the pack retaliates first and the claws are out and aiming for the throats of the hunters. 

Stiles watches over his shoulder as the two groups clash, Prang in a deadly match with Allison and Isaac, while Barello swoops around avoiding a pissed off Erica. A hand around his arm drawa Stiles attention back to his own targets. Stiles lets Aiden flip him over his shoulder but quickly maneuvers so he’ll land on his feet and in a short movement, his newly sharpened blade finds a home in Aiden’s knee, the ex-alpha letting out a loud shout of pain as he stumbles back, the wound refusing to close. 

Ethan rushes him, shoving Liam further behind him as he did so only to meet a similar fate as his brother, falling to the ground unconscious as Stiles digs his knife a little too close to the younger twins heart. Mountain ash in folded steel makes for a hell of a weapon against werewolves. They'll heal, but it will take time that this fight doesn't have.

A roar behind him has Stiles sliding to the side, dodging a swipe of Derek’s claws in the nick of time. 

“Why are you doing this?” Derek growls around his fangs.

“Would you believe I’m doing it to protect you?” Stiles throws back, a complete mockery of the line Derek once said to him. Another swipe of the claws and Stiles swings forward, knife in hand, plunging it into Derek’s stomach and pushing the now Beta werewolf back against a nearby tree. One perk of this fight is Stiles still remembering Derek’s fighting style. Not that he really ever had one. Slash and hack.

Stiles shoves the knife a bit harder and steps back when he feels it catch into the tree truck. 

Derek reaches down to pull the knife out to continue fighting but freezes when he can’t get his hand around the blade. His claws disappear as soon as his hand gets close enough to it. 

A startled shout had Stiles whipping around, Prang’s voice echoing as Isaac stands above her ready to strike. “ENOUGH.” Stiles voice booms throughout the clearing and everyone stops. Werewolves and humans alike feel the cold chill of paralytic magic flow through their veins rendering them immobile. “That’s better. Now I came here for a reason,” Stiles glances at Derek, at the haunted look in his green-hazel eyes. 

Stiles ignores the pained look and turns on his heel to kneel down next to Liam’s paralyzed body. With a wave of his hand Stiles allows Liam back his movement and he watched the young beta shift back to human before trying to scramble away, “Do you know who I am?” Liam nods fear bright in his eyes as his back hits a tree trunk. “Who?”

“Y-yo-ou’re S-Sti-les.” He sobs.

“Do you know what I do?” Stiles asked slowly pulling the gloves off of his hands.

Liam shakes his head back and forth as he tries to thrown himself sideways but Stiles merely kicks one of his arms out making the younger boy crash into the ground. 

Stiles rolls his eyes as he crouches over Liam’s sprawled form. “I hunt things. Dangerous things, things people think are a threat. And surprise Dunbar…someone thinks you’re a threat.” Reaching out Stiles sets his hand over Liam’s eyes, closing his own to try and drown out the howls of his old pack. Behind him Derek’s struggle against the knife lodged in his stomach grows as Stiles hand start to glow a faint gold. Whiskey eyes open in surprise as Liam cries out, “ You still have gold eyes…” 

Moments past before the light finally diminishes and Derek feels something break inside of him.

A pack bond. 

He's felt the feeling before, it was all too familiar to him during the fire and after his fuck-up with Stiles. The wolf inside of him howls and the man on the outside can only growl, wanting to avenge his pack mate. Getting to his feet Stiles moves towards his hunters, bypassing the bleeding Derek without a glance and leaving a twitching, clawless, fangless Liam on the ground. 

Leaving the rest of the McCall pack frozen where they stand, Stiles quickly touches his three hunters and draws away the paralytic magic binding them. He watches them shake off the magic before collecting their weapons and waiting for him to head back to the cars, they don't particularly like being frozen so Stiles figures he's going to pay for this later. Looking back over his shoulder Stiles meets Derek’s gaze one last time. 

“Later Hale.” He whispers snidely “Enjoy the new human member of your pack. I hope you guys treat him better than the last one.”

Stiles disappears into the tree line, shouts of his old life swallowed by the forest.

\--

None of the pack showed up at the funeral. 

Stiles flinched every time a gun went off. 

He disappeared two days later.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahahahahah, so yes, i am continuing this! I just had the longest...well, ever at school and this got pushed to the back burner. but i hope to write more as soon as possible. Please bear with me and enjoy! Also, Thank you so much to everyone who commented and who keep leaving kudos! They have made my days!
> 
> So heres a question, who would like a happy ending with Stiles rejoining the Hale pack, and who would like to see Stiles remain a BAMF and stay with his new merry troupe of hunters? Or would some combination of the two be best?

Allison feels the lock slide out of place as she moved the pick in her hands slowly out of the door. She can barely hear Lydia in the Bluetooth in her ear but knows the banshee’s listening in from outside. As quietly as the hunter can she turns the handle and sneaks into the dark motel room. Allison creeps over to the duffle bag she can see outlined in the light streaming in from the street lamp outside that’s sitting at the foot of the bed. As much as she’d like to wake and fight the woman on the bed for attacking her boyfriend she’s come here with a mission.

The woman on the bed shifts and Allison freezes where she’s kneeling, but when the other woman doesn’t move anymore, Allison continues to root through the bag finally pulling out a stack of fake passports and IDs. 

On the bed Prang blearily peels one eye open, immediately taking in the hunched out person at the foot of her bed. Slowly her hand slips under her pillow and the other huntress curls her fingers around the hilt of her dagger. Prang waits to hear the pull of the zipper on her duffle bag start to close before she throws back her covers and leaps at the intruder. 

\--

The noise of their fight is enough to wake the few people actually staying in the motel rooms around them. People that are mostly hunters.

Stiles’ growls under his breath as he throws open the already open door to Prang’s motel room and freezes as he sees Allison pushing Prang up against the wall. Blood drips from a large cut on Prang’s arm and a smaller one on Allison’s forehead. Without hesitation Stiles whips forward and ducks his arm under Allison’s, around her neck and into her hair, pulling her away from his team mate and throwing her onto the floor. Kneeling down he pulls her arm up between her shoulder blades and only stops when she hisses in pain. 

“Wait! Stiles, it’s me!” Allison cries as she tries to look up at her old friend. 

Stiles’ frowns, like it should mean something to him that it’s Allison under him and not a complete stranger; to him, there is no difference. Instead he looks over his shoulder at Prang who is leaning against the wall, breathing laboured and holding onto her arm with a sour look on her face. “You okay?”

“Fine.” Blood seeps out around her fingers and Prang curses at the thought of stitches.

“You don’t sound fine,” Stiles quips back just as his others two hunters, a dark skinned youth with white boxer briefs and a shotgun, along with an olive skinned man with nothing on but a goatee and a handgun, burst into Prang’s motel room. “Gallagher. Barello, Morning.”

Stiles feels Allison shift underneath him, testing his weight and hold and he presses back letting her know she isn’t going anywhere. “Gallagher, why don’t you take Prang out to the hospital to get her arm looked at,” the teenage hunter nods his head at the young woman who looked about ready to dispute the need for help. She shut her mouth though when Stiles threw a glare over his shoulder. “Also, Barello…next time you rush in to help. Please put pants on.” Below him Stiles feels Allison snort and bury her face into the old carpet to hide her eyes.

The Italian drops his gaze to the lack of clothing on his persons and shrugs, reaching over to pull Prang’s bed sheet around his waist, keeping his gun trained on Allison.

\--

Allison watches silently from her spot on the bed where Stiles had put her, with the order that if she moved Barello could shoot her. A part of her wanted to say that Stiles would never shoot her but the smirk the Barello man keeps shooting her, despite wearing nothing but a bed sheet, was full of gleeful murderous intent. 

She took in the easy way Stiles moved now, full of a grace and purpose he had never had before, or at least, she had never seen him possess before. However that same ease and confidence made her hunter instincts stand on edge, telling her, yelling at her, to be prepared for anything. In hindsight, she really should have told Scott and Isaac where she was going. 

The motel door shuts behind the manager that had come seeking the cause of the ruckus. The old woman didn’t look like she cared one way or another, what the mysterious sound at 3am was, but was forced to in order to get her desk phone to stop ringing. 

Stiles turns to Allison as the old lady leaves before coming to stand right in front of her. Reaching out he cups her chin in one hand and turns her head to the side before brushing her hair back in a mock caress. She feels him remove the Bluetooth from her ear and watches him raise it to his lips. “Lydia, if you’d be so kind as to join us. Room 216 as I’m sure you know.” 

He doesn’t wait for a reply, merely throwing it as hard as he could against the wall, watching it shatter into pieces. Stiles looks at her at solemnly, then sighs heavily, the tiredness seeping into his bones from the late night hunt and now the early wake up call. 

“What were you looking for Argent?” Stiles asks his tone telling her there was no room for lies. 

Allison doesn’t reply, just eyes the door waiting for Lydia. 

Stiles patience snaps and his hand shoots out to tangle in Allison’s hair. Ignoring her shout of pain he uses his grip to pull her focus to him. The two hunters glare at each other, neither one wavering nor glancing away until the door opens slams open a moment later and next to them Barello raises his weapon to the newcomer. 

“We were looking for information,” Lydia states coldly. 

Stiles grit his teeth but slowly lets go of Allison’s hair to take in the red head in the doorway. Lydia has barely changed, she still stood tall, confidence leaking out of her, hair coifed perfectly despite the hour and clothes looking like she had stepped out of a Vogue magazine. It was only her eyes, a little darker green and much more haunted, that had changed. He didn’t let it faze him.

“What kind of information?” Stiles demands. 

Lydia perches herself on the bed next to Allison, looking over her best friend’s cuts and bruises. “Names. Of your...” She gives Barello the stink eye a, “Friends. Also any record of where you’ve been for the past three years.”

Stiles let out an ugly snort. “We’re suddenly caring about that now are we?” Lydia opens her mouth to object but Stiles was having none of it. “Whatever, we’re past all that. Whatever information Allison may have found is useless. We’re heading out in a few hours and this time, it’ll be more than three years before any of you ever see us again.”

A hiss slips out from between Allison’s teeth, as she shoots to her feet. “So that’s it? You’re just going to leave again? You’re not even going to talk to us?” She was cut off as Stiles spun around to face her. 

“Now you listen to me Argent,” he spat her last name like a plague. He has travelled far and wide, helping and hunting the supernatural and humans alike, and everywhere the name of Argent was tainted in ash and blood. “I didn’t leave because I wanted too; I left because the first half of your idiot alpha pair made me. I was willing to throw away my life for you, for the good of the pack and all each one of you did was throw it back in my face.”

Lydia bristles but remains quiet; none of them had done anything to help him. Even Allison seemed to shrink back as she drops her eyes to the floor. 

“So you’ll excuse me if I don’t want to ‘talk’ to any of you.” Stiles finishes before motioning to Barello to lower his weapon. “Barello here will see you to your car. But keep in mind… If any of you show up around here before we leave, we shoot. No questions asked.” He warns.

Stiles made for the door, intent on getting back to his room so he can call to check on Prang and Gallagher before starting to pack up, however Lydia calling out to him makes him pause.

“What if we were to hire you?” the Banshee asks, standing up next to Allison

Stiles was so going to regret asking this…so regret it, “What do you mean?” he looks back at her warily. 

Just like she used to, Lydia comes up to Stiles shoulder, this time height wise too, three years had seen Stiles clear 5’11 while Lydia had barely grown an inch since high school. “The dead pool that went around a few weeks ago, No doubt you’ve heard about it?” Stiles nods, “We still haven’t found the ones responsible yet for its creation. We made a list of likely suspects and seeing as it was only the names of the Hale-McCall pack on the dead pool, the list ended up being quiet extensive.”

“Piss off a lot of people while I’ve been gone have you?” Stiles smirks but it wilts at the death glare Lydia shoots him.

“Our prime suspect was Deucalion,” 

“Well, you did get his Emissary killed; I’d say that’s warrant enough for revenge.”

It was Allison’s turn to glare at him, “Emphasis on the was. Turns out he, Peter and my father have been running a rather lucrative business together for the past year or so.”

Stiles doesn’t mean too, but he feels his eye twitch as he stares at two girls in horror. “Do I even want to-”

“No.” Allison lets a small smile tug at her lips at the mortified expression on Stiles face. 

Shaking his head, Stiles tries to get rid of the awful images that are attempting to burn themselves into his retinas. “Dear god- just- no, wait, look, we may be a hunters but we- Barello excluded, are not a band of mercenaries. ” Barello nods from his spot sitting on the floor, bed sheet still around his legs. “There is no amount of money any of you could offer us that would make me want to stick around to help you.”

Lydia smirks, and just like every time back in high school she had dragged him into trouble, Stiles knew he had just signed him and his team mates souls over the Wailing Woman. 

\--


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone so many awesome reviews and kudos!! I'm glad people like this and i'm actually shocked that everyone doesn't want Stiles to rejoin the pack. Haha, not that I blame you. It pissed me off to write the pack hurting our poor baby. I do plan on going a little bit into Stiles new crew, but not deeply as i want to focus on the tension between Stiles and the Pack, so hopefully you'll bare with me for that, i know not everyone enjoys OC's.
> 
> Hope to get another chapter up soon provided filming doesn't get in the way! Thanks for reading!

YOU DID WHAT?” 

Scott’s positive his eyes are going to pop out of his head as he stares at the two women lounging on Derek’s sofa in front of him. He and Isaac had been asleep when Derek had called (well, howled) an emergency pack meeting. They had immediately rushed over to the loft, getting there the same time as Erica and Boyd. Both couples look at each other in confusion before entering only to see Derek looming over a very sheepish looking Allison and a Lydia who was as calm as ever. 

No one else remains calm as her however, because after Ethan and Aiden arrive, Allison explains exactly what she and Lydia have done, sneaking into Stiles motel and then hiring him to find the person who had put a price on their head. 

“What’s your pack’s deal with that Stiles guy anyway?” Ethan asks looking at Scott.

Aiden smirks in amusement, “Yeah, did you screw him out of a deal or something?”

When his statement is met with silence Aiden exchanges looks with his twin who merely shrugs back at him. 

Finally Erica mutters, “Something along that line.” 

Lydia snorts elegantly, “Something?” she glares at the Pack around her. “Derek kicked him out of the pack for no other reason besides the fact he was human.”

Aiden couldn’t help raising an eyebrow at his occasional lover, “When you say for no other reason?”

“I mean for no other reason.” Lydia’s glare is enough to melt steel and it was aimed directly at Derek whose only response was to dig his growing nails into the table he was leaning over. 

“It was to protect him.” Derek shoots back. It’s an old argument and a moot point; he had failed to protect Stiles. He knows deep down Lydia and everyone else would never forgive him for it. 

“Yes, because that worked so well.” Lydia snaps.

“Alright, knock it off.” Scott rubs at the bridge of his nose. He always has the worst time when the two fight because even now, three years later, he still hasn’t been able to pick a side. He had never wanted Stiles to leave Beacon Hills, but he hadn’t wanted his friend to get hurt, never mind the Sheriff. 

Derek rolls his eyes before turning to Allison. “How much did you offer him in order to get him to agree to stay?”

\--

“Are you serious? Five million dollars?”

“Yup.” Stiles nods

Barello raises his hand. “I say we take it.”

“Yeah man, Stiles” Prang gives their leader a guilty look. "I am all for your extremely and highly justifiable issues with these guys, but that’s seriously a lot of money.” 

Barello reaches over to raise Prang’s hand as he adds, “And as Braeden always says to us, a girl’s gotta eat.”

Prang yanks her hand back with a glare, “Barello we’re trying to have a serious conversation here and plus, you’re a dude, please stop saying that.”

“Hey, I’m all for unspecific gender pronouns.” Stiles shrugs trying to ignore his stomach rolling at the thought of working side by side with his old pack…but the money.

“Oh my god, we’re not talking about this again.” Prang groans.

Gallagher chuckles, “We didn’t even settle this the last time.”

“My point.”

“Can we please get back to the five million dollars?” Barello asks eyeing Stiles subtly, noting the emotions warring behind his best friends’ whiskey eyes.

“I say we do it.” Gallagher nods.

“…Me too.” Prang sighs in defeat giving Stiles a hapless look.

Stiles hung his head before letting it roll back up so he could look at his team mates. “…Yeah, I guess I am as well, I guess we can bust their asses for a while before we leave.”

“I feel like I should point out the problem though,” Prang points out.

“What?”

The woman grimaced, “We need to find a way to track down some epically rogue mastermind with no idea who or what they are or where they may be, all while avoiding the McCall-Hale Pack.” 

“… okay, while I appreciate the honesty Prang, stop pointing out all of out flaws in a clearly flawed plan.” Stiles mutters crossing his arms and glaring at his friend. “We’ve found more elusive targets before, this one shouldn’t be too difficult. Just think of the money, nothing else matters.” Because that’s exactly what Stiles was going to be doing for the next while, even if he was sure no amount of money was worth facing Derek and Scott again.

Rubbing a hand over his face Stiles moves away from the motel table that they were talking around to fall into one of the armchairs by the window. An awkward silence fills the room making Stiles look up at his three hunters when he didn’t hear them leave. “What?”

Gallagher shifts from foot to foot; he, unlike Barello, had actually put on pants before leaving for the hospital with Prang. “You know we don’t have to do it.”

Stiles blinks in confusion.

“Stay here you idiot.” Prang elaborates, hands waving in exasperation. “These people hurt you Stiles. If being here is going to make those wounds reopen we don’t have to stay, money be damned.”

The hunter smiles at his team; and these people really are his team, his friends, if they are willing to give up so much money just so he didn’t have to deal with his past. Giving each of them a smile Stiles shakes his head. “As long as we stick to the job it should be okay.” Barello gives Stiles a disbelieving look that could have rivalled his fathers. “Shut up, if it gets to be too much we’ll cut and run with the half we’re getting up front.”

Seemingly mollified by that answer Prang grabs the duffel bag of her clothes Allison had dug through and heads for the bathroom, leaving the door open behind her. “So what’s the plan?” she asks.

“For now?” Stiles goes boneless in his chair, “We should sleep. I’m exhausted and if we’re going to be chasing unknown killers I’d like to have somewhat close to 30 winks if not a full 40.”

“I can put a call out to some of my contacts in New York to see if they’ve heard anything.” Gallagher adds eyeing the bed wistfully. 

Barello nods, “I’ll call San Fran and get Vee to check her sources too. Beacon Hills has been a mystery for so long she’ll be glad to get her hands into it.”

Stiles grimaces, Vee’s astral projection skills have always been creepy to him out but he couldn’t say they weren’t helpful when they need inside information that they couldn’t get to. “Awesome, I’ll get in contact with Danny, he may be able to track the original Deadpool if we can find it.”

“I’ll get it when I meet up with your Martin friend after I get cleaned up,” Prang states sticking her head out of the bathroom. 

A block of ice sinks to the bottom of Stiles’ stomach at the thought of the two woman meeting, “Wha-why?”

“Well, first of all, to get our money,”

“And second?”

“I’m making sure this so called True-Alpha and the Alpha has-been gets a clear message to keep the fuck away from you.” 

Stiles groans sinking lower in the chair as both Gallagher and Barello nod at her self-assigned task. This was going to end in so much bloodshed, he just knew it.

“You know, we do have another option,” Barello says suddenly, eyes lighting up in glee.

Gallagher raises an eyebrow and even Stiles watches him curiously. 

“We could just kill them all and collect the Dealpool ransom for ourselves.”

‘So much bloodshed,’ Stiles thinks as he throws the notepad by the motel phone at Barello. “Would you just go put some pants on!”

\--

Liam swings his legs back and forth as he sits on the cold steel exam table. He wants to growl every time Deaton shines the penlight in his eyes but the moment he goes to do so it feels like an aching chasms inside him that just echoes with emptiness. Where for a few months he had felt the solid presence of a would inside him, now it was just an empty well for more of his old anger to gather. 

Deaton steps back with a sigh and clicks off his pen light. “You know the old saying eyes are the window to the soul?” At Liam’s nod Deaton raises his hand to cover the young boys eyes. “Mr. Stilinski may not be the most powerful druid around but he knows what he’s doing. He’s essentially ripped the magic of the bite right out of your body and has blocked the part of your soul that would be receptive to it again.”

“Are you saying I can’t be a werewolf anymore?” Liam snaps, anger flowing through his veins at the thought.

“I’m afraid that exactly what I’m saying.” Sighs Deaton , “It’s very old magic, and probably something he learned from my sister.”

“Can you undo it?” Liam watches as the vet shook his head before he had even finished asking.

“Undoing that kind of magic is impossible; at best, the attempt at reversing that magic would kill you before the ritual could even be completed.” 

It feels like the rug has just been swept out from underneath him. Without a word Liam grabs his jacket and is out of the building before Deaton can stop him. Deaton actually doesn’t even move to stop him, merely watches him go with a serene look on his face.

“Are you not going to tell him it was you whom hired Stiles to take away his wolf in the first place?”

Deaton glances over his shoulder and tilts his head to the side when he sees Peter leaning against the door frame to his office. “How did you get in here?”

“Chris opened the door for me.”

“Letting the dog inside the house I see. I’ll be sure to have a word with Mr. Argent.”

Peter growled under his breath but didn’t move, “That boy was a danger to the pack, even if he had managed to find an anchor you knew it was more than likely he’d one day lose his temper and kill most of them.” The older wolf states cocking his head in the direction Liam had run off in.

Deaton nods, “Yes, as much as Scott’s heart was in the right place with giving Liam the bite, I feel it wasn’t the wisest of decisions.”

“And your decision to Stiles back in?”

“A much wiser choice, the pack needs more humans, and Mr. Stilinski, despite his past grievances with the pack, is the perfect candidate to keep the pack strong.”

Peter snorts, “I think you’re highly underestimating how angry the boy is.”

“With time, all things can be forgiven.” Deaton says eyeing the eldest Hale.

The werewolf shook his head, “That, Emissary, is where you’re wrong. Some pains are too hurtful to get over.”

“We shall see.”

\--

Sleep and Stiles have never been buddies. Sleep had been an elusive mistress at the best of times during high school, and their relationship had only worsened thought out the years. Groaning into his pillow at the loud banging on the motel door Stiles heaves himself out of bed and storms over to the door, almost wrenching it off its hinges. He really should have switched motels. “WHAT?” he snaps. 

He had been expected Gallagher or Barello to be on the other side, or maybe even Scott if he was unlucky. Instead Stiles is shoved aside as a short blonde blur enters his room and turns on him. Stiles’ readies a quick spell in defence but pauses when he takes in the seething form of Liam-who-is-no-longer-a-werewolf-thanks-to-you-Dunbar. “Oh…shit.”

“You did this to me!” Liam snaps, missing the way his teeth used to snap to emphasis his point.

Stiles shakes his hand, the spell dissipating so he can cross his arms and look over the boy in front of him. Liam was no longer a supernatural threat and Stiles wouldn’t treat him like one. “Look, kid, you shouldn’t be here.” The hunter sighs rubbing his face. So much for his 30 winks.

“Turn me back!” Liam demanded and Stiles gaze snaps up to meet baby blue eyes, the anger flaring in them aiming directly at him.

Silence settles for a moment in the motel room before Stiles sighs and shuts the door to his room. He motions for Liam to follow him and pats the space next to him as he falls back onto his bed. “Look kid, come here.”

Stiles glances up when Liam doesn’t move closer; he’s not surprised, last time he was close to the kid he was ripping his wolf out of him. “See, what I told you back in the forest about what we do, isn’t all true. I don’t like to hurt or kill people, not if I can help it.” Stiles explains. “The four of us, are like the supernatural police, without all the contradictory shit you’ve probably heard from the hunter grapevine.” 

Liam nods but his face is still angry. He’s had a few run in with hunters and none of them have been good. He’s heard things about Stiles crew from Scott and the others but they usually stopped talking when they found him listening in.

“See people who have a problem with the supernatural; werewolves, vampires, ghouls, things like that, or if the Supernatural have a problem with people, they call us, and we deal with it.” Understanding flutters over Liam’s face and Stiles nods. “Someone hired us to take you down. They asked us to kill you kid, but hey you know, I figured you were better off being human against as opposed to being dead.”

Liam feels all the fight go out of him. He lets his shoulders slump and he hauls himself over to the bed to collapse next to Stiles. “But who would want to kill me, and why?”

Stiles shrugs looking the teenager over, he reminds him a lot of a certain True Alpha. “Dunno, the alias he gave us was Moff Tarkin.”

“How do you know it’s an alias?” Wide blue eyes look up at him helplessly. 

In that moment Stiles swore he was sitting next to a clone of Scott. “Seriously, has no one seen that movie?” Stiles’ mutters before letting his head drop into his hands. “Look, it’s done, you’re still alive, why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”

“What am I supposed to do though?” Asks Liam, slightly desperate as he gets to his feet only to have Stiles corral him towards to the door.

Stiles’ leans against the doorframe as he shoves Liam out into the hall, the kids entire body radiating how lost he felt. Stiles’ knows the look well from his mirror. “Go be a kid, don’t get caught up in anymore supernatural shit. Get some new friends and stay away. Before you actually get hurt.”

Blue eyes look up into whiskey brown and Liam frowns, “Is that what happened to you? Scott wouldn’t tell me but is that it? Did you get hurt?”

A grin so twisted it wasn’t really a grin slips onto Stiles face, “Yeah, I did. Now get out of here.” The hunter lets the door slam in Liam’s face.

Stiles is officially giving up on sleep now.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for hanging in there with me and for all the wonderful comments and kudo's I've received even if i haven't posted a new chapter in several weeks. We were filming last weekend and then I just kind of lost my train of thought. D: i could make a train pun but i'm really tired and it'd just be really bad anyways so i'll save you the torture. A bit longer chapter than normal, but not a lot of action. Look for more soon and thanks again.
> 
> Yayyyy, Danny!!

The ride up on the elevator is quiet, the hour too early for any sane person to be awake. But Stiles has never had much of a claim to be sane. There is the distant sounds of cars going down the highway next to the building and birds chirp outside the windows when Stiles steps out of the elevator and into the hall. Balancing the two cups of highly overpriced but entirely necessary coffee in his hand Stiles knocks on the door to apartment 406 and waits.

A curse from behind the door makes Stiles smirk and his grin only gets wider when Danny flings open the door, his death glare turning to confusion and then to an unhappy flatness. “Who did you kill this time?” Danny asks sounding resigned. 

Stiles pouts, “Hey now, how is that any sort of greeting?”

“Has it been any less true in the past?” the hacker sighs eyeing the tray of coffee in Stiles hand like he was debating whether the liquid gold inside of it was worth the Stilinski induced headache. 

“Three times. I’ve come to you only three times with my dead bodies.”

The door to 405 opens and the business woman who was just about to leave for work freezes when she hears Stiles comment. Her eyes go wide, going back and forth between the two men in front of her and the stairwell. 

Danny groans and grabs onto the lapel of Stiles’ jacket, hauling the other man inside. “He’s joking, we’re talking about a video game.” Danny explains with a false grin to the woman, slamming the door shut in his neighbours’ face. He really didn’t want to have to move again. 

When he turns back to look at Stiles, the hunter has already taken off his shoes and was putting the coffee tray down on Danny’s kitchen table. “So, what is it this time?” Danny huffs, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he follows after Stiles. 

Stiles plops down in one of the kitchen chairs and took a sip of his coffee. “You’re familiar with the Benefactor and his Deadpool that went around a little while ago?” Stiles asks. 

Danny nods taking his own coffee and sits across from Stiles. “The one that had all of our friends-” Danny pauses, rewording his statement at Stiles unimpressed look. “I mean, the one that had all of my friends name on it? That Deadpool?”

The hunter smirks and nods. “Right in one.”

“You want me to track it don’t you?” Danny can already feel the headache coming on. 

“Well, considering the fact that the McCall pack hired me and my friends to find the Benefactor, I’m guessing they never outsourced you as a way to find it?” Danny shook his head in the negative and Stiles had to roll his eyes. “Idiots.”

Danny kind of can’t help but agree. Even after all of these years, Derek, Scott and the Pack still didn’t know about his knowledge of werewolves…despite the fact that he had been dating one for almost two years. “But you want me to try now? I thought they had fought off all the people coming after him for the rewards money?”

“They have so far, but they don’t know who set it up in the first place, and if he had the ability to do it the first time-”

“They’ve got the ability to do it again and send even more after them.” Danny finishes. With a sigh the hacker leans back in his chair, holding his coffee close. “Fine, I’ll look into it for you. How much are you paying me? ...Wait, how much are they paying you?”

Stiles grin was so wide it almost looked demented to Danny. “Five for all of us, so I’ll give you half of my share.”

“Five million?!” Danny chokes, coffee dribbling down his chin. “Geez… I’m in the wrong business.”

“Owning your own Fortune 500 Company in electronics and computer technology seems like a pretty good deal to me. Not bad for a twenty-one year old.” Stiles smirks.

“You keeping tabs on me even when you don’t need anything Stilinski?”

“What can I say? You’re a good person and extremely useful. Even if I have no idea why you’re still in this backwater town.” Stiles said. 

Danny shakes his head, “Beacon Hills is still home. I went away for school but… I don’t know. It’s been three years since you left, almost four now. No ones seen hide nor hair of you in all that time, with good reasoning from what I’ve heard.” He watches Stiles face slowly close off but the hacker continues. “It just… feels like you’ve been gone longer, the bodies pile up quickly in Beacon Hills, more so since you left and it’s hard to keep track of it all.”

Stiles hissed under his breath, “The people who die in Beacon Hills are not my problem. Everyone important to me here is already dead. Take it up with the local pack.” 

Brown eyes crinkle in sadness but Danny doesn’t say anything else. It’s a sore spot for Scott and the Pack so he couldn’t even imagine how much of an open wound it still must be for Stiles. “Why don’t you tell me all you’ve heard about the Benefactor?”

\--

Lydia’s sitting on the worn blue couch in Derek’s loft, legs crossed and looking calm even as Derek paces behind her. Scott sits on the arm of the couch, leg bouncing up and down as the three of them wait for Prang to show up. The woman had called several hours ago demanding a meeting and the first half of their money.

Scott and Derek both pause and perk up when they hear the elevator grind to life. “She’s here.” Scott whispers. 

“Obviously.” Lydia mutters brushing a crease out of her skirt, even her human ears could hear the metal gears screeching to a halt and the following footsteps leading up to the door. 

Derek tenses as he catches a whiff of Prang’s perfume; spice, irises and smoke. It made something bristle inside of him when he caught Stiles’ once familiar scent on the woman as well.

The sound of the rollers echo loudly in the loft, the early morning light flowing into the room as Prang steps forward and down the small flight of stairs. Her eyes are determined and full of an anger that isn’t solely hers. “Well, you actually managed to show up.”

“I live here.” Growls Derek, fangs itching to drop as he recognizes the leather jacket Prang’s wearing as the same one Stiles was wearing the night of the attack in the forest. It smells like him and he hates how it mixes with her perfume.

“Good for you.” Prang snorts as she strides across the empty floor to take a seat in the empty armchair across from Lydia. “Doesn’t look like anything should,” She mutters casting a quick look around at the sparse furnishings and crumbling walls. “Now we’re all here, first things first. Our agreement was half of our fee up front, the other half we’ll collect when we deliver The Benefactor to you.” 

Prang reaches into the inner pocket of her jacket pulling out a slip of paper. “This is the bank account in which you can wire the money to. Seeing as we’ve already started gathering Intel this morning, the wire transfer should be done as quickly as possible.”

Derek hates her more and more by the second. Even Lydia is glaring at the other woman with a glint in her eye that told the two werewolves that if Prang weren’t a direct link to Stiles, the Banshee would be predicting a death in the very near future. 

Scott picks up the slip of paper that Prang had set on the table between them and put it in his pocket. “We appreciate all the help.” Always the calm voice, Scott places a hand on Derek’s shoulder, urging the beta to stand down. 

“Excellent.” Prang smiles lounging back in her chair, “We’ll inform you as our own updates come in. When we move on a target you’ll be kept in the loop, if you decide to join us, know in advance that we aren’t going to risk our lives for you. You may be paying us but we are worth more than dying in a place like Beacon Hills.” Scott opens his mouth to argue but fails when the woman continues. 

“On the next order of business,” Prang glares. “Any contact with us will be done through myself or through our main communications man, his name is Gallagher. Under no circumstances do I want you near or around Stiles Stilinski.” Her words are ice and the cold hazel of her eyes bore right into Derek’s as she speaks. “I will harm any of your pack who so much as comes close to him.”

“And who are you to make that decision?” Lydia snaps. Over her shoulder Derek can see the way her nails are digging into the palms of her hands, his own thighs fair no better, his claws aching as they slide out in anger. 

Prang straightens where she is slouching back in her chair. “I’m his team mate. I am his hunter. I am his friend but most importantly, I am lucky enough to be his family.” She snaps. “Stiles has saved a lot of people and I am no exception to that. If keeping you away from him, away from hurting him even more than you already have, if I can do that than maybe I have hope of one day repaying what he’s done for me.”

The four sit in silence for a moment before Scott breaks it, “What has he been doing the past four years?” Everyone turns to look at him, “If we can’t talk to him, can you at least tell us?” he gives her a pleading look.

No one to date has been able to resist Scott’s puppy-dog eyes. It’s what everyone claims is the reason why he gets to sleep with both Allison and Isaac; because one day they had confronted him trying to make him choose and he had turned his eyes on them and asked if they could all just be together. They had both given in, rather happy about it now, and Prang is no exception to their power. 

The hunter sighs, gaze going out the window to the rising sun, “Look, I don’t know you from Adam okay. Maybe you’re nice people? Maybe you’re rotten to the core douche bags. However you’ve done something that I can never forgive, to someone I love. So telling you things about Stiles is not high on my list of things I want to do…but, if you really want to know what Stiles has been doing the past few years,” she pauses looking back at Scott and she can see the pain there. “You should ask our other friend, Barello. He’s been with Stiles pretty much since Morrell’s death three years ago…

“I can tell you it hasn’t been easy for him, surviving on his own and fighting down monsters and humans alike. He’s spent a lot of time saving people but sometime I think he forgets to try and save himself.” Prang seems to zone out for a moment, a sadness settling into her features for a moment before she shakes it off and gets to her feet, readjusting her jacket. She turns for the door and can’t help adding. “But it’s not really any of your business.”

“Hold on.” Lydia’s voice makes Prang stop and look back over her shoulder. The Banshee is holding out a black USB drive to her. “It’s all the information in our possession that we could gather about everyone who came after us and copies of several different drafts of the Deadpool that was sent out.”

Prang takes the drive slipping it into her pocket. “Good, thanks, it should help our hacker out some if he’s got original files to trace.”

With that, Lydia, Scott and Derek watch as Prang makes her way back across the room and out of it in the same manner she entered it; quickly, purposefully and dramatically.

\--

Stiles looks up from the bowl of Fruit Loops in front of him when his phone vibrates. Flipping over the Moleskin he was writing in with his other hand, Stiles checks the message he had received with a chuckle. He leans back in the kitchen chair to look at Danny who’s hunching over a keyboard set up with several large monitors, doing something that looks extremely illegal to Stiles. “Hey, we have all their data, Prang’s drop-boxing it to you now.”

Danny’s head shoots up from where he has been concentrating. “Drop Box?” he hisses the word like venom. “Doesn’t she have the Cloud?”

The hunter just shrugs eating another spoonful of what had once been Danny’s cereal. “I think she saw Sex Tape and was forever ruined for using Cloud.”

Another hiss escapes Danny as he blocks out the awful words Stiles was saying. Stiles catches a few curse words combined with ‘blasphemy’ and ‘unsavoury troglodyte’. He also thinks he’s hearing the worst of all curses when Danny whispers something about ‘Windows Vista’ and Stiles just ducks back into the kitchen and hunches over his Fruit Loops and the protection charms he was looking at in his book. 

“Is he always like this?” Stiles’ asks glancing up at one half of the once-upon-a-time-Alpha-twins. “Cause this would be scary to live with.”

Ethan shrugs eating another scoop out of his own bowl of Fruit Loops. “He once had a client from Australia that I thought was going to give him an aneurysm. This is very reminiscent of that time…we don’t really talk about it.”

Stiles nods, “So you’re taking the whole, my boyfriend actually knows about werewolves thing pretty well.” Ethan had walked in on the two of them talking about spells and computer viruses with a bunch of weapons and wolfsbane out on the counter. Danny had made Stiles clean it all up while he waited outside in the hallway with his boyfriend. 

Ethan sloshes the milk around in his bowl before he look up at the man he has heard so much about but has never met. “Eh, after a while in this town you just kind of accept things at face value.”

The Hunter makes a noncommittal noise in agreement. 

“Sooo…” Ethan starts again, “Can I ask why you haven’t gone all dark wizard on me yet?”

Stiles feels his face twitch in confusion, “Dark Wizard?” he put in capitals. A title like that deserves fucking capitals. “On you?”

“Yeah I mean, I used to be part of an Alpha Pack, now I’m part of the pack that seriously pissed you off, and if I’m right you’re the obnoxious, smart aleck, druid prodigy Morrell always used to talk about.”

Stiles feels a familiar clench in his chest at the mention of his old teacher; the one person to keep him grounded and sane after the loss of his father and the betrayal of his pack. “Yeah, I’m that guy.” He chuckles, consciously making the tight feeling inside his chest loosen, trying to ward off the panic and guilt. “Morrell saved me, even when she was busy being your Emissary. She told me all about you and your brother.”

Ethan grimaces.

“Don’t worry,” Stiles adds finishing off his Fruit Loops, “No one’s hired us to kill you and as far as I’m concerned you, your brother and the pretty Hale-looking brunette I haven’t met yet from the other night mean nothing to me. If you stay out of my way, you won’t get caught in whatever fallout that happens while Hale tries to figure out a way to postpone my being here.”

“…They really hurt you didn’t they?” Ethan whispers not wanting Danny to over hear. “Derek and Scott, the others too?”

Bright whiskey eyes flash in anger and Ethan has a sudden flashback to the night in the woods when Stiles had drained the werewolf right of Liam. “I couldn’t begin to describe how it feels to be treated like you’re worth nothing.” Stiles pauses then, features softening just a bit as he looks up into Ethan’s understanding gaze. “Well, maybe you and Aiden out of anyone might know what that feels like.”

Ethan can only nod and wanting to break the tension in the kitchen shoves the box of Fruit Loops back at the Hunter across the table. “So, where are you with those protection spells?”

Stiles just shakes his head and with a wry grin shows Ethan his Moleskin and the drawings he’s done.

\--


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I feel like even if i wrote a million sorry's it wouldn't be enough to translate how awful i feel not updating for so long. Thanks to everyone for all the reviews and wonderful kudos! A special thanks goes out to Mulder200, who had been correcting me on my terrible spelling and grammar, and to scotscraigy as well. I'm sorry i totally mistook you for someone else! GO UK! 
> 
> Let me know how you guys like this chapter!

\--

“Please tell me there’s nothing else on the list?” Barello mutters shifting his hold on the grocery basket weighing down his arm.

Stiles chuckles as he ducks down the baking isle of the small grocery store that has been in business in Beacon Hills for about four decades. “You’re the one who didn’t want to get a shopping cart.”

“That’s because Prang always runs over my heels.” Barello hisses looking over his shoulder as if speaking of the woman would make her appear at his back with one of those air plane shopping carts for kids she always insists on using.

Stiles blinks at Barello but merely shakes his head remembering ‘The Trip to Costco’ last year. “Well lucky for you she’s still at the bank making sure the transfer went through okay, so I think you’re safe.” He turns around to grab two bags of chocolate chips and throws them into the basket. “There, a treat for you for surviving the shopping trip.”

Barello immediately perks up shifting the heavy basket to one arm so he can rip open one of the bags of chocolate. “Sweet.”

Stiles shakes his head at his friend but ends up rolling his eyes in surrender. Turning back around he reaches towards the shelf again to grab a couple cartons of baking soda but his hand collides with another before he can grab it. “Oh, Sor-“ The hunter freezes when he follows the hand up it’s owners arm and sees the familiar nurse the hand is attached to.

Melissa stood rooted to her spot, one hand still out as the other was laden down with groceries, watching the young man in front of her with wide eyes. Her scrubs are wrinkled and her hair is in a messy ponytail but despite the extra lines around her eyes, Melissa hasn’t changed a bit. “Stiles?” Her voice wavers. 

Before Stiles can move away or speak, Melissa lets her armful of groceries fall to the floor, allowing her to haul her son’s ex-best friend into her arms. Stiles stiffens at the embrace, because as much as the betrayal of the pack still hurt him, as much as he’s mad at Derek and at Scott for abandoning him, he’s loathe to admit that the empty spot Melissa has created had been one of the worst hurts. He had lost his father and the woman who had been like a mother to him in one fell swoop. “Melissa-”

“Shh… Stiles.” Melissa grips his shoulders tighter unwilling to let go. 

Barello raises an eyebrow at the strange woman, but the hunter keeps his distance and fights the instinct rolling inside him to not let anyone in this town touch the younger man. However the woman’s eyes are full of tears and he can see the way Stiles’ is hesitating; that alone is enough to give him pause. Stiles never hesitates anymore.

Stiles feels something break inside of him, an old piece of anger or the time of his childhood he had spent with the McCall’s; whatever it is, it doesn’t hurt as much as he was expecting. Lightly he places a hand on Melissa’s back and pats her awkwardly. “Uh, Mrs. McCall?”

Melissa sniffs, pulling away from the boy, no, the man the boy she had once known had grown into. She wipes at her eyes, her mouth opening and closing as she tries to form words that just won’t form. Melissa doesn’t know what to say to him, but, voice wavering, finally settles with, “You look good Stiles.” 

Stiles shook his head, glancing at Barello out of the corner of his eye. The mercenary is a few feet away throwing a bottle of cherries into the basket and dutifully not listening in on their conversation. The hunter shrugs and gives the woman in front of him a sheepish grin, “Yeah, I’m starting to feel better too. Being away from Beacon Hills helps a lot.” He pauses and gestures to Barello behind him. “Turns out there are actually people out there that care about me. Go figure.”

The nurse sighs her face breaking into a wry smile. “I’m so glad Stiles.”

That…that was not what Stiles was expecting her to say. “Wait, what?”

“If you’ve found a happiness outside of Beacon Hills, then-” Melissa bites her lip, cutting herself off as she closes her eyes as if trying to hold back something. “When you left, when I heard what happened…I didn’t speak to Scott for months.”

Stiles feels his jaw drop in shock and behind him he can feel Barello tense up in return. Waving his team mate off the younger man eyes Melissa wearily. “When you say months?”

“I mean months. Four.” Melissa’s eyes burn with anger and tears. “Being bitten by werewolves must come with a incurable case of stupidity- I… because I can’t believe-” She bit her lip, knowing this wasn’t the time for her own anger to surface, Stiles is still dealing with his own. 

The hunter feels a burning sensation prick at the back of his eyelids and butterflys fluttering in his stomach. He feels like he’s going to be sick. “Y-you mean you-”

Melissa reaches out and cups Stiles’ scruffy cheek in her palm, her other hand moving to grip his shoulder. “Listen to me, you got out of Beacon Hills Stiles, make your father happy and stay out of here. There’s nothing for you here.” 

She leans forward and places a wavering kiss to his cheek, having to stand on her tip toes to do so. When Melissa pulls away, she can’t help but brush a stray stand of hair off of Stiles’ forehead before she turns away from the man that had once been her other son. Tears streak down her cheeks as she looks to Barello who has been watching ever since Melissa had stepped into Stiles’ space. “You. You make sure, okay? That as soon as whatever business you’ve got here, that as soon as it’s done you get the hell out of here.”

Stiles feels his throat burn, a wave of old affection washing over him as Barello nods in acceptance of the task the short, imtimidating, woman in front of them has given him. 

Melissa bobs her head as she takes a step back and points at Barello like a mother scolding her children, “And, don’t you dare let him come back... Y-you take care of h-him-” 

Her voice breaks.

Stiles turns around, hand stretching out in habit for Melissa’s but she’s already walking away from them, hunching in on herself and crying. Her grocery’s sit in a pile at Stiles’ feet, sugar is strewn all over the floor and cream leaks out of it’s package, but Stiles doesn’t care. 

Barello comes up silently at Stiles’ side and nudges him with his elbow. His hazel eyes are creased in both worry and even a bit of happiness. “Am I allowed to like her?” he asks quietly.

Stiles scoffs, his breath shaky as he drops his forehead against Barello’s shoulder, the Italian is at the perfect hight so that he doesn’t have to bend over to try and hide from the emotional whiplash of the past few minutes. “We’re never going grocery shopping again.” He croacks. 

\--

Gallagher frowns as he stomps his way through the Preserve. He had started out the morning on such a high note too. If a hospital visit and dealing with Pack drama can be considered a high note… The dark skinned man sighs as he hears another branch snap behind him. Holstering his Glock, Gallagher crosses his arms and turns to face the teenager following him. “Why are you still here?” He glares back at Liam.

Liam huffs, missing his werewolf stamina, he’s just glad he was in shape pre-bite otherwise he would have lost the older man as soon as he entered the forest. “Because, Scott and Derek haven’t answered any of my calls or messages since the other day when you guys showed up and screwed my life over.”

Dark brown eyes narrow, “And this is my business how?”

“This is essentially your guy’s fault!” Liam snaps finally coming up beside Gallagher still panting. “You made me human again.”

“Look kid, Stiles told you someone hired us to kill you and we left you alive! Why are you still blaming us for that?” Gallagher rolls his eyes and keeps on walking. As much as the kid is being annoyingly persistent, he kind of reminds him of Stiles in the way of hard-headed stubbornness. He just wishes that when he was doing his surveillance of the houses belonging to the pack members, he had hid a little better in front of Liam’s place.

“Because it’s your fault.” Liam repeats storming after the Hunter.

Gallagher groans and rubs his eyes, “Please just go away.” He begs.

The younger man shakes his head, “Not until you get Stiles to change me back.”

Narrowing his eyes with a smirk Gallagher unclips his gun from its holster and eyes Liam as the boy flinches. Lifting his gun to eye level Gallagher continues further into the forest and moments later, Liam follows after him.

\-- 

The sky starts to darken above as Derek stares across the street, focusing his hearing on a room on the second floor. As muffled as it is he can still make out the familiar timber of Stiles’ voice and it makes a something deep in his chest hurt more than it has in years.

“You’re guilting all over the parking lot, it’s unbecoming.” 

Derek whips around his claws popping out before he notices his uncle standing a few feet behind him, a judging look aimed at him. Sliding his claws back in, Derek completely ignores Peter’s statement. “When did you get back? I thought you and Argent were supposed to be gone all month?”

Peter eyes his nephew with a fair amount of criticism written in his fair looks. “We were, but then the mini Argent called Chris and said that our darling Stiles had wandered into town, and well, you know how much I hate to miss all the excitement.”

The flat look Derek sends back at the older wolf can only be described as some mix of heavy disdain and utter disbelief. 

“Besides, Cora texted me asking why you were moping more than usual over some kid she didn’t know.” Peter adds with a wistful look, “I couldn’t pass up such an opportune moment to nit pick one of your most hair brained ideas.”

“Go back to Argentina.” Derek growls turning away from Peter, his eyes glowing blue.

Peter tries to keep the smirk off of his face as he glances between his nephew and the window on the second floor, the curtains are pulled across, blocking out the figures moving about in the room. “You are aware that he knows you’re out here right?”

Derek freezes before he whips his head away from the window to glare at his uncle. “ What are you talking about?” 

Peter can’t help but roll his eyes, motioning to the thin white line, one that smells of sodium bicarbonate and purified water, that’s mixed together to look like paint. Lines of it are on the pavement of the parking lot and they seem to circle the entire complex. “Protection by Detection spell, Not quite perfect but still enough to alert the caster of a trespasser and the feel of their intent.”

The younger werewolf leaps back out of the circle to stand next to his uncle, his glare only hardening as he notices Peter’s never crossed the line. “How long has he known I’ve been out here?” Derek hisses.

Reaching a hand out Peter pats Derek’s head like he did when he was a child. “Since the moment you first crossed it. He was probably able to sense your presence creeping around the perimiter last night and felt like more piogant steps needed to be taken to ensure the safety of his friends.”

“How did you know I was checking up on his last night?” Derek mutters sourly, finally turning his back on the motel to face Peter. The older wolf just blinks at him like he had just asked if the Earth was round and Derek grinds his fangs together. “Shut up Peter.”

\--

The clock ticks on the motel wall and Stiles feels a drop of sweat slide down his neck as he sits on the unsteady, creaky, motel room chair. He’s almost done mixing ingredients together from an old recipe Morrell had given him for a tracking spell; now all he needs is for Danny to finally get back to him with something closely resembling a name or an address. He wraps a purple crystal in a fresh bay leaf before he presses it into the liquid mixture sitting in the oak bowl in front of him.

Suddenly ‘Style over Everything’ by the Bronx sounds from his back pocket and Stiles frowns as he looks up from his oil slicked fingers to Barello, who is digging into the second package of chocolate chips with a peanut butter covered spoon across the table. “My phone is making noise.”

Barello gives his leader a flat look before sighing and getting to his feet so he can shove his hand into Stiles’ back pocket and dig out his phone. Pressing the speaker button Barello sets it on the table but Stiles doesn’t have time to speak before Gallagher is bulldozing over him.

“Can I please just shoot this kid?!”

Prang snorts from her spot on one of the boy’s double beds where she’s cleaning her MP7. Barello pauses on his way back to his chair just in time to hear a squawk of disbelief over the speaker that clearly doesn’t come from their team mate. “And which kid are we talking about?” Stiles asks with a chuckle even though he has a good idea as to who it is.

“Dunbar; I’m serious Stiles, he’s been following me for like three hours now and you know how much I hate kids.” Gallagher mutters, his voice tinny from the bad reception.

“You could just knock him unconscious and leave him in the forest.” Prang piques up. Two sets of un-amused brown eyes look at her from the table. “What?”

“I didn’t not kill him just so he can get eaten in the Preserve.” Stiles grumbles.

“Well, I passed a Meth Lab about a mile back; I can circle around and leave him there.” Gallagher offers having to speak louder to talk over the horrified shouts of the teenager with him.

Barello snorts into his peanut butter and chips. ‘Meth Labs?’ he mouths at Stiles who merely shrugs. Those meth labs had been there long before he knew of werewolves and they have apparently survived all the shit in the forest to date. Stiles kind of wanted to applaud them…but as a Hunter, not as the son of law enforcement kind of way.

“Look, it’s getting late Gallagher, why don’t you do whatever you can to lead the little wayward human home and get back here so we can set up a game plan for tomorrow.” Stiles states leaving the crystal in the bowl so he can wipe his hands off on his pants. The Hunter stands and picks his phone up, disconnecting the call as he goes over to the window to peek around the edge of the curtains. Looking out the corner of the dirty glass Stiles watches across the parking lot as Peter and Derek speak; the Protection spell had alerted him when Derek left his circle but it seemed the werewolf still hasn’t gone.

“Want me to do something about him?” Barello asks reaching over Stiles’ shoulder to pull the curtain closed again, blocking the two wolves from view. “Prang and I can go deal with him right now.” 

Over on the bed Prang glances up, eyes glinting and holding her MP7 up with a questionable sort of glee on her face. 

Stiles shakes his head at the two of them, Prang’s expression dropping before she turns away in disinterest. Stiles figures he should really have her re-evaluated by another spark…there is seriously something wrong with the woman. 

“Are you getting anxious about meeting up with Hale?” The Italian asks drawing Stiles’ gaze and meeting it with a stern look. Barello drops his voice to a whisper so Prang can’t overhear before adding, “Especially after this morning with Argent?” 

He can hear the worry clouding Barello’s voice and Stiles reaches out laying a hand on his best friends’ shoulder. “Honestly, yeah I am worried about it…but in true Stilinski fashion I’m going to keep avoiding it at all costs.”

“It’s going to happen you know.” Sighs Barello, “It always does; the things we don’t want to face are often shoved in them.” 

Stiles mock glares at the older mercenary. “When did you become my shrink?” he laughs. 

Barello just smirks and ruffles the hair on the back of Stiles head, “Three years ago, when I found you in a clearing full of dead hunters.” 

A small chuckle manages to worm its way out of Stiles before the younger hunter stills a moment later epiphany slapping him in the face. “Wait, what did you just say?” 

Barello pauses and drops his hand, “Uh, when I found you-?”

“No, no, before that.” Stiles holds up his phone and stares at Gallagher’s name where it glows on his screen from when he had hung up on his team mate. 

“What, about the things we don’t want and having them shoved in our faces?” Barello frowns, “Why are you wearing your ‘I just had a crazy leap of Brain Function’ look?’” 

Stiles doesn’t even hear him, already on his way over to his laptop, oily fingerprints on his keys be damned. “I think the key to this whole Benefactor thing might be right under our noses.” 

Prang got up from her spot on the bed to look over Stiles shoulder curiously, “What are we talking about?” 

“Liam.” Stiles replies simply already scrolling though his emails. 

“Okay, that tells us a lot Stiles, thanks.” Prang mutters sarcastically.

“Liam. Liam Dunbar, think about it. This Benefactor person hired a whole bunch of brute force assassins to try and take down the McCall-Hale Pack. It was basically a free for all, right? Thugs and murderers come and take a pot shot at any werewolf and Banshee you can find. Mind you none of them succeeded so logic would dictate that they look into a more specialized way to take out a pack of werewolves.” 

Barello nods seeing where Stiles line of thinking is heading. “By hiring a certain Spark to make their newest beta not a werewolf anymore.”

“But what would one measly beta like Dunbar do to a pack like the McCall’s?” Prang asks.

“Liam is actually Scott McCall’s first Beta,” Stiles states, fingers flying over the keyboard as he tries to run a quick check on the IP address the person who hired them to kill Liam had used. “The rest of them are either human or were bitten by a Hale. Reyes, Boyd, Lahey, they’re all Hales’ betas so the ties between them and Alpha McCall, while still there, are marginally weaker. Taking out Liam is a strategic move to weaken McCall enough to take down the rest of the Hale pack by proxy due to weakened pack bonds.” 

“That’s smart.” Barello mutters, “kind of like taking out the pack’s knee caps so you can shoot it in the head.” 

Stiles stops typing and in unison both he and Prang raise an eyebrow at Barello. “You need a less disturbing metaphor,” mutters Prang, “leave the violent melodrama to me.” 

“I’ll have to send all this information to Danny too, I’m not getting anywhere with the software on my laptop.” Stiles sighs turning away from his friends.

Prang brings out her cell phone, “I’ll call Vee again, see if maybe she can project herself into Dunbar’s dreams tonight, she may be able to get some clues that we could use as to who the packs pissed off.” 

“Like a suspect. A suspect would be great, tell her to find us a couple of those.” Barello nods. 

“A suspect? What are you a cop? We’re looking for a supernatural killer, not a mob boss.” The woman teases, hip-checking Barello out of the way as she heads back to the bed texting as she walks.

Stiles chuckles, “Behave you two. When Gallagher gets back-” He’s interrupted by the shrill cry of the emergency alarm going off on all three of their phones. Said alarm is a fail safe that Gallagher had created in their phones after the Chupacabra incident. It works that if they ever run into trouble or get separated again, all any of them have to do is type a code on their keypads and the others will get sent a warning alarm and an active GPS signal.

“Speak of the devil.” Prang mutters cursing under her breath as she grabs her newly cleaned gun and drops to the floor so she can drag the duffel bag full of weapons out from under the bed. 

“425… Getting a location now” Stiles states not looking up from the open GPS app he brought up on his cell phone as it triangulates their teammates position. He grabs his leather jacket and runs for the door, Barello and Prang hot on his heels. “Looks like a Wendigo.”

“This place had Wendigos?” Prang cries in dismay as she throws open the emergency exit at the side of the building, cringing at the loud sound of rusty metal grating on cement.

“The Preserve has everything.” Stiles rolls his eyes but stops, coming to a dead halt when he sees the two figures staring at him from beside his SUV. 

“Heard there was trouble,” Peter chuckles, smirking at Stiles. 

Stiles grit his teeth completely ignoring the imploring look Derek is sending him. “Peter. Didn’t know you were back in town.”

“Do we really care?” Prang hisses remembering the last run in they had with the older zombie wolf. She raises her MP7 up a bit higher and lets the nozzle aim directly at a certain spot below Peter’s waist. 

Derek growls at the threat of the gun but his gaze never leaves Stiles’ face. It’s the first time he has been able to get a look at the boy who was once a member of his pack. Before, like everything else in his life, he had screwed up. “Stiles…” 

The sound of his name coming from Derek’s lips seems to spur Stiles into motion. Waving for the others to continue into the SUV Stiles moves past the two werewolves so he can throw open the driver’s door. “Tell McCall his ex-beta’s in trouble in the Preserve,” he tells Peter with a glare. 

“Nonsense,” Peter waves him off and lets a wide grin, that is so fake it makes them all angry just to look at it, cross his face. “I heard the word Wendigo, now, I happen to know another Hunter who loves killing those things.” He whips out his cell phone and presses in Chris’s number by memory, “Why don’t Derek and I just follow you. Hate to miss all the action and everything.”

Stiles whips around, “Don’t you dare-“ ‘follow us’ was what he had meant to finish with but Peter’s already dragging Derek away by the elbow towards the BMW parked across the lot. The younger Hales’ face twists into a sour look as he eyes his uncle before letting his gaze fall back to Stiles. Stiles merely turns his eyes away and ducks into the drivers seat, slamming the door behind him.

“Do I get that bottle of cherries if I accidentally shoot Hale in the head?” Barello asks eyeing the two wolves out the tinted window in the backseat as Stiles tears out of the parking lot. “Either one?”

Prang shakes her head. “Not if I shoot them first.”

Stiles doesn’t even protest.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like crying. 
> 
> Is crying an acceptable thing I can do now? T.T So, this chapter... haha... I accidentally deleted my Microsoft Word program on my computer. Probably my dumbest mistake ever. I actually had to retype this chapter up after re-installing Microsoft Word 1997. Yeah. That's a thing. That happened. So to make up for the extreme lateness( Dudes and Dudettes, it's been a a month. If you're still here i will hand you a virtual cookie) This chapter is longer than normal.
> 
> Many thanks to ScotsCraigy and TC1801 for the awesome comments and not wanting a happy ending. I doubt this will have a happy ending. Hope you guys enjoy this and thanks for sticking with me. Any spelling errors are because MSWord is a pain in my ass.

Stiles whips the SUV up onto the shoulder of the back road, rocks and dust kicking up behind the wheel, almost spinning out as they come to a stop. He slips out of the drivers seat as Prang and Barello climb out of the other side to meet him by the trunk.

“Still got a signal.” Prang announces as she pockets her cell phone to grab another bag out of the SUV. “Gallagher’s position hasn’t changed much, North east about three quarters of a mile.”

“Good,” Stiles nods before looking over at Peter and Derek who are waiting a bit further up by Peter’s BMW. “If you’re coming with us make sure to stay out of our way.”

Next to him, Barello slams the trunk shut, a large rifle bag hangs over his shoulder and he lays a hand on Stiles’ shoulder, “We need to go.” The Italian states moving to place himself in between Stiles and Derek who had started to move towards him. Barello sends a glare over his shoulder and Derek halts after only a few steps.

“Your little hit man is correct,” Peter agrees as he places a hand on his nephew’s back to change his course to the woods. “We should hurry, least we lose that adorable fluff ball of Scott’s.”

Stiles opens his mouth to retort Peter calling Barello a ‘little hit-man’, Barello is anything but little, but stops him self at the last moment. He refuses to let Peter bait him. Instead the hunter turns towards the forest and takes off at a dead run turning his eyes to the spot blinking on his phone that signals Gallagher’s position. He doesn’t fail to notice Prang and Barello keeping themselves between him and the two were wolves’.

He doesn’t bother fighting back the smile at the sight.

By the time they get close to Gallagher’s position, they no longer need the GPS. The loud shrieks of the creature along with the swath of claw marks and destruction is enough to draw them to where they need to go.

Prang drops down behind a fallen tree several yards away from where the large looming figure of the Wendigo is spinning around attacking trees with its claws looking for its prey. “It’s like something out of a horror book,” she mutters as Stiles skids to a stop and kneels down next to her. Barello and Peter slip behind two of the larger trees next to them as Derek crouches behind a large boulder on Peter’s other side.

“First Wendigo I take it?” Chuckles Peter as he leans forward to glance at the imposing winged monster. “I will admit it’s larger than normal.” He frowns.

Stiles’ matches his expression as he too peers up and over his cover to look at the creature. “That’s a bit more than ‘larger than normal’.” He hisses glaring at Peter. “That thing has to be over nine feet tall!”

“Fascinating indeed.” Peter mutters a wry smile on his face.

The young hunter grumbles under his breath as he adjusts his grip on his gun so he can watch the Wendigo through the sight. “Barello, up.” Stiles orders.

Barello nods, slinging his rifle bag over his head and onto his back so he can climb one of the larger trees where he will be able to set up a perch.

“Prang, you and I are going to circle around and try to come up behind it. Wendigo’s have back eyesight but their sense of smell is how they find their prey. We need to stay downwind of it and out of hearing range, Once we start firing that should disorientate it enough that we should be able to take it down.”

Prang looks hesitant but nods anyways, reaching into her pocket for her ear-piece. She looks up at Barello who is also turning his Bluetooth back on. “Any sign of Gallagher?” She asks him.

Barello makes a few hand motions before he points across the monster made clearing to a large boulder that’s holding up another fallen tree.

Squinting, Stiles can barely make out the crouched form of Gallagher who has his back to Liam, the two hiding from the Wendigo tearing up the forest around them. “Alright, we go on three,”

“What about us?”

Stiles pauses, grimacing before glancing back at Derek whose looking back just as strongly, if not slightly offended. Stiles has to give himself credit, he had tried to forget that the Hales had been with him and he had almost succeeded. Taking a deep breath Stiles cocks his head to the side, “Peter can stay here to protect Barello; he’ll lay down cover fire for the three of us to get to the other side of the clearing.”

Derek nods and readies to run. Without a word Prang moves closer to his side, not meeting his eyes but not having too. She’s moved to put herself in between him and Derek and Stiles is monumentally glad that she is willing to run with him.

“Alright, lets go.”

\--

Gallagher looks up from his hiding spot when a familiar chirp sounds in his ear. He has Liam firmly ensconced between his back and a boulder and is using the scent of the fresh cut wood and torn earth to hide their scent from the Wendigo that had almost seemed to come out of nowhere. A flash of moving light brown and denim draws his eye to the treetop across the clearing and Gallagher grins as he spots the familiar form of Barello leaning over his favourite sniper rifle.

He nudges Liam gently and peers over his shoulder at the frightened teen. “Don’t worry kid, Calvary’s here.”

Liam grips the back of Gallagher’s jacket a bit tighter as he leans out to see Stiles and Derek creeping around the edge of the clearing. He lets out a small sigh of relief and allows his forehead to fall against Gallagher’s back at the thought of rescue. He may yet make it til his step-fathers meatloaf dinner tomorrow.

\--

Stiles readies his rifle, loaded with silver tipped bullets that house mountain ash inside. It wouldn’t be enough to kill the Wendigo but it would be enough for them to slow it down so they can light it on fire. He knows from experience that the numerous symbols carved into Barello’s bullets will be the best weapon against the creature they are staring down. Taking care to aim down his scope, Stiles feels Prang at his back, ready to start firing as soon as he did. He does his best to not turn and see what Derek is doing. When Stiles fires, the bullet is silent and it slams into the grey, almost translucent coloured skin of the creature and Prang wastes no time in following Stiles shots with her own.

The oversized Wendigo lets out a deafening screech at the sudden pain in it’s chest and throws out it’s wings, knocking branches off of trees in it’s anger. Barello curses aloud as the resulting wind gusts almost send him tumbling from his perch however a clawed hand keeps him in place. 

Barello doesn’t even bother to thank the wolf that is now sharing the tree branch with him as he starts to fire at the Wendigo along with his team mates. Jabbing at the Bluetooth in his ear to turn it on Barello snaps down the line, “Someone needs to extract Gallagher and Dunbar ASAP. That Wendigo is going to run right over them if they don’t move!”

Prang grits her teeth as she drops her handgun onto the ground, pulling another out of her shoulder holster. “Something’s wrong, only the silver bullets are even piercing its skin.” She growls at Stiles who nods, watching as several of Prang’s bullets bounce off of the Wendigo’s chest, tearing a small hole in it’s wings before digging into the ground. It was like it was bouncing off of a rock or something.

“Save the ammo.” Stiles orders, “Get the spell ready so when it charges at us we can set the son of a bitch up in flames.” Prang nods, holstering her weapons and slides her backpack onto the ground as she kneels down. “Hale. We’ll cover you if you think you can get to Gallagher and Liam.”

Derek nods eyes flashing as the werewolf breaks the cover of the trees and leaps into the clearing. Stiles had to bite his lips at the familiar dramatic entrance Derek has always been known for; instead he focuses on getting his next shot between the Wendigos’ eyes, well above having Hale in his line of sight. 

The beta growls as he ducks out of the way of an oversized claw that’s attached to a far to long to be human, arm. Derek reaches out to dig his claws into the creatures arm but is caught off guard when he barely leaves a few scratched in the skeletal looking limb. He doesn’t have time to contemplate it however as the Wendigo swings at him, this time with it’s other arm and wing. 

Dodging again, Derek back flips until he is close enough to the cover Gallagher and Liam are using. “MOVE.” The beta snaps at the two other humans, ready to cover their escape. A bullet flies out from Stiles’ hiding place and is lodged into the Wendigo’s shoulder, just as another slams into it’s leg, almost snapping the frail bone in half. 

Gallagher reaches out and grabs the back of Liam’s jacket, dragging the young teenager behind him towards the tree line as Derek covers their retreating backs. They are almost there when it seems the Wendigo has enough of being shot at. 

It’s howl echos throughout the forest and the Wendigo swings itself outward, knocking trees to the ground and giving chase after Derek and Gallagher. Prey firmly in it’s line of attack, the Wendigo shoots out but crashes to the ground instead, disorientated from a quick shot to it’s head from Barello’s sniper rifle. Next to the mercenary Peter raises an eyebrow in approval; he even sends a quick snapchat of the hole in the Wendigos’ head to Chris figuring his hunter would be impressed.

Derek slows and looks over his shoulder to see what, for most normal creatures, werewolves and Wendigos’ alike, should have been a perfect kill shot. A chill goes down his spine at Stiles new choice of friends and how dangerous they are. He doesn’t like how violent they are and how it has seemed to rub off on Stiles a great deal. Stiles has never been that violent before…had he?

The Wendigo twitches, jaw gaping open as blood trickles into it’s own mouth from its head wound. Eyes that had once been human look straight past Derek, setting its sights on the tasty human morsels that are still running away from it. Scrabbling at the air the Wendigo roars, knocking Derek into the side of a tree where the werewolf collapses in a heap. 

Stiles feels a strangled cry leave his lips as the Wendigo closes in on his team mate and the kid his friend seemed to have adopted. Dropping his gun to the ground Stiles ignores Prang’s shout and runs full tilt towards Gallagher and Liam. He reaches them at the same time as the Wendigo does. The hunter lets out a sharp cry as the evil devourer sinks it’s claws into his shoulder, not deep enough to cut it off, but far enough that it will be painful for a month or so. 

A rush of power floods to Stiles’ fingertips and the young man whips his hand around, throwing the unbound magic straight into the Wendigo’s face. It rears back scrambling at it’s own eyes as the sound of glass breaking echoes around the clearing. Gaze full of pain Stiles doesn’t move until Gallagher starts to haul him away with the hand that isn’t keeping Liam close. They almost walk into Derek who had come to just in time to witness the outburst of magic.

Prang slides into the space next to her friends, almost slipping in the overturned earth as she lets fly the makeshift Molotov cocktail, hitting the Wendigo right on it’s back between it’s wings. It lets out a terrible screeching sound as it is slowly engulfed in flames. The flames however don’t stop it from trying to twist away from the painful magic coursing through it’s body. The flames don’t stop it from trying to reach out to its prey for one last juicy mouthful. Stiles hisses, using his good arm to slip his extra PP7 to Gallagher who takes it with a smirk as he, Prang and Barello all unloaded the rest of their clips into the dying creature, each bullet, silver or not, embedding themselves right into the monsters flesh. It collapses to the forest floor in a heap, barely twitching.

For good measure Derek reaches out and claws off the Wendigo’s arm that isn’t on fire yet before throwing it on top of the burning pile. Stiles just shakes his head while Gallagher eyes Derek’s claws like he’d like to buy a set when he goes grocery shopping next. They wait, mere moments as the Wendigo’s body slowly starts to turn to ash.

“I fucking hate Wendigos.” Stiles curses breaking the silence as they watch the ash float away. Around them the forest looks a mess but Stiles can feel the undercurrent in the Earth as magic flows to the hobbled trees and upturned soil, waiting for a time when it will be able to gather enough energy to right the damage done to the forest. He can feel the magic drain from the pile of fire in front of them and back into the currents below. 

Derek nods in agreement before his eyes narrow with a frown towards his old pack mate, “Your arm.” The werewolf steps towards Stiles but freezes as a bullet imbeds itself into the ground just where his next step should have been. His head snaps around to see Barello and Peter a few steps behind them.

Barello merely purses his lips with a fake chagrin grin, “Whoops, must have still had a shot left,” he pats the side of his sniper rifle like one would a particularly well trained dog. “My bad,” 

Stiles shakes his head at his best friends antics, giving the mercenary a bit of a ‘knock it off or I’ll ground you’ look. Prang just takes hold of Stiles’ bleeding arm and slowly begins to peel back his ruined leather jacket. “This needs stitches. A lot of stitches.” She tells him. 

“I can sew it up back at the motel room.” Gallagher offers, “Since you did just rescue my butt. Again. I’m pretty sure we have some pain killers in the car still.” Stiles laughs as everyone gathers their fallen equipment so they can head back to their room. 

Next to Gallagher, Liam watches the burning pile of Wendigo, curiosity eating away at him despite all the horror he has just sat through. What was the attack Stiles used? What kind of magic was it? Why wouldn’t bullets work it? Liam frowns remembering the way Gallagher had fired every single round in his magazine into the creature only to have all of them bounce off of its skin. Why did they all work after Stiles magic, was his spell something that broke a force field or something?

As if drawn by his unasked questions, Stiles steps up on his side, Derek and Peter flanking him on either side as the other hunters eye them from where they’re standing. For a moment Liam can see the man Scott and Derek have always talked about, the great Stiles Stilinski; the boy who ran with wolves, standing right in front of him. However, despite all of the stories Scott has told to him in the past year, nothing could prepare him for the whirlwind that was Stiles Stilinski, the boy who was ran out by wolves. 

“ You okay?” Stiles asks setting his un-bloodied hand on the teenagers’ shoulder. 

“For some definition of okay.” Liam laugh is like a sharp exhale. He can feel the panic that’s running through his veins starting to dissipate, but it will take him a very long time to shake the fear he had felt looking at the Wendigo. “But what happened?”

“What do you mean?” Derek asks looking between Stiles and Liam.

“Well, nothing we did worked did it?” Liam says. “Your claws and their bullets. It wasn’t until you did the whole light-flashy-thing that anything hurt that thing.”

Stiles is going to chalk it up to a little bit too much blood loss when all he can do is mouth ‘light-flashy-thing’ in amusement.

Surprisingly it’s Peter who answers. “That’s because that Wendigo wasn’t real until Stiles hit it with his spark.” Everyone turns to look at the older wolf who rolls his eyes in exasperation. “Honestly, It wasn’t hard to tell, it reeked of mineral and stone. Likely your friend and the little ex-beta over here tripped an alarm and activated a trap spell.” 

Liam bristles at Peter’s words, “We didn’t trip over anything.”

Gallagher however nods from beside Liam. “Maybe a proximity trap then? I checked the map before I left, but we weren’t close to anything.” 

Peter shrugs and eyes the burning pile of Wendigo. “Well whatever it was that you got close to was enough to awaken this fellow here.”

“But if it was made of rock, how could Stiles’ spark turn it real?” Gallagher asks looking towards his leader who was specifically not looking at the unamused glare Barello is aiming him. “Oh, that’s the ‘I’ve done that before, but I have no idea what I did and it always turns out really terrible’, face.” 

“For the love of god, shut up.” Stiles grumbles as he feels his face heat. He leans his head against Prang’s shoulder, it’s the perfect height for the nap he so desperately wants to take right now. 

“Well, that’s unhelpful.” Peter hums under his breath eyeing the boy he had once offered to bite. If only he had accepted. “You must have inadvertently turned an illusory creature into a real one in order to destroy it.” He claps a hand on Stiles shoulder feeling the boy stumble under the force. “I must tell Deuc of this, he will no doubt be endlessly amused.”

“How about you don’t tell him anything… and stop touching me or I’m going to throw you in that burning pile along with that Wendigo.” Stiles warns brushing Peter’s hand off of his arm and removes his head from Prang’s shoulder. “Let’s just get the hell out of here before I pass out.” 

Gallagher reaches out, digging the car keys out of Stiles’ pocket. “I’ll drive you guys back to the hotel and then drop Liam off.” 

“What, why?” Prang’s eye twitches, “Why don’t you just take him in your own car?” 

Liam and Gallagher pause, giving each other guilty looks before Gallagher met Prang’s gaze sheepishly. “Wendigo.”

Prang groans; she hates having to buy new vehicles every time a creature destroys one. She’s pretty sure their credit rating is going to plummet again. They have the worst luck. 

“Well why don’t I just take him home?” Derek offers running a hand across his beard. “I’m parked at the house so I’m close.”

Stiles frowns, turning wide brown eyes to the werewolf, “House? You have a house now?”

Derek gives him a small smile, “We re-built the Hale house actually. I keep the loft for meetings and-”

Gallagher clears his throat loudly and Stiles jerks back away from Derek. The werewolf shoots a death glare at the dark skinned man who just crosses his arms back at him. Liam reaches up and puts a hand on Gallagher’s arm, “It’s ok, I can go home with Derek. That way you can get Stiles to a hospital faster.”

Stiles opens his mouth to protest but Barello cuts him off by lifting his leaders uninjured arm over his shoulders. “I’m fine. I don’t need help walking.”

“You always need help walking.” Barello shoots back dragging Stiles towards the spot they had left the car. Prang starts after them, hauling their weapons with her. 

Liam looks up at Derek before turning to Gallagher, “Would it be okay if I see you guys later? Like tomorrow or something?”

The hunter smiles at the teen, “Yeah, you can if you want.” He ruffles the blondes hair and takes off after his friends, giving Derek a final glare as he disappears into the woods. 

Derek blinks and slowly turns to look at Liam who is watching Gallagher go with a doe eyed expression. Great, another Scott. “Really? Him?”

Liam’s face turns several shades of red and his arms flail out smacking Derek in the stomach. “No! Shut up!” He goes to storm off but Derek just reaches out to pull him back in the opposite direction. 

“House is this way, come on.”

\--

It’s a few hours until sunrise when the four hunters finally haul their butts into their motel room. Prang moves to set the weapons down so they can be cleaned in the morning, Barello goes to the two beds and starts to push the two doubles together. From now on they’d all be staying in the same room anyway, gender be damned. Gallagher heads to the bathroom, pushing wet towels towards his friends so they can clean off.

Limbs heavy with fatigue, Stiles sheds his shirt and pants, collapsing onto the spot closest to the window. He feels Barello’s familiar weight sink down next to him and he lets out a mumble about always sleeping with the naked one before he sinks into oblivion that can only come from sheer exhaustion. 

Prang and Gallagher take the two other spots and curls as close too the other two as possible, placing three people in between Stiles and the door, just in case any of the wolves try to visit during the night. The hunters firmly resolve not to move for the next twelve hours as they each slip into sleep.

\--

The next morning…well, afternoon, finds the four hunters still in bed. Gallagher and Barello have switched spots so Barello and Prang can work cleaning the guns from yesterday on one bed. Gallagher is leaning up against the headboard, map on his lap trying to retrace his steps in the forest to see where he may have tripped the trap spell. Stiles’ lays back on his and Prang’s pillow, one he has stolen fair and square, trying to text with the one hand it didn’t hurt to move.

“Vee says she’ll be able to take a look in about an hour or two.” Stiles says looking at his team mates. “But she also says that because the area around here is already flooded with magic and shit from the Nemeton it’ll be harder, if not impossible, to keep a projection going for any length of time.”

“I’ll follow her and keep an eye out for any trouble,” Prang offers as she reloads a magazine with bullets.

“Get her to try following the telluric currents under the city too,” Barello adds, “According to your friends research, they’re pretty prominent around here.”

Stiles nods, taking a few moments to send a text back to Vee. “Speaking of Danny, I’m going to go see if he has anything new for us.”

“Oh, Liam wants to see us later on.” Gallagher throws out, not even looking up from his map. If he had, he would see three sets of confused faces looking towards him.

“Uh, why?” Prang asks with a frown. “I would have thought that the poor kid had probably had enough of us.”

Gallagher shrugs highlighting some line on the map. “Apparently most of the pack hasn’t been in contact with him since we turned him human.” Next to him Stiles bristles and Gallagher reaches out to squeeze his wrist in understanding. “Told him it’d be okay.”

Stiles nods squeezing back, “Good.” 

\--

Derek sighs as he lets Scott, Allison and Lydia digest the information hes told them about the Wendigo in the Preserve last night. He’s also informed them about his run in with Stiles and how he had used his magic to create a creature out of rock. 

“It’s not physically possible.” Lydia states from her spot on the arm chair. 

Scott just sighs, “Lydia, werewolves and magic. I’m pretty sure anything possible at this point.” 

The red head just shook her head, “No, I mean even for an emissary, or a druid, you can’t create life from rock.”

“Apparently you can.” Allison mutters rubbing her temples, she can feel a headache coming on. “Peter did it too.”

“No,” Lydia snaps trying to get her friends to understand, “Peter just kept himself alive. He was already living to start with. If that spell was based on stone, he shouldn’t have been able to turn it into a living, breathing, Wendigo.”

“It wasn’t breathing for very long.” Derek thowns in causing Lydia to glare at him but the beta just raises an eyebrow back at her. 

“I want to talk to Stiles.” Lydia states. 

Scott whines in the back of his throat and even Allison twitches. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? You remember what happened last time?” Allison reminds her touching her throat where Prang had pressed the knife into her skin. 

“It doesn’t matter. If Stiles can use that kind of magic, we need to know.” Lydia says getting to her feet. “The Hale land has a lot of magic running through it, all of it focused on the Nemeton. If Stiles is powerful enough to channel that energy, we need him back. He can teach us, he can make us a real pack again.” 

Derek growls, snapping his fangs at the Banshee. 

However, Lydia doesn’t back down. “You know I’m right Derek, we need to talk to Stiles, ask him questions, convince him-”

“No.”

The other three turn to look at Scott who is still sitting on the small couch, hands pressed together and eyes on the floor.

“What?” Lydia snaps looking at the True Alpha. 

“We shouldn’t ask him.” Scott repeats quietly. He glances up at his friends and seeing their bewildered expressions he adds. “Look, it’s Stiles. He may have been gone for three years but I still know him. We’re lucky he’s even stuck around this long.”

“Because of the money.” Allison guesses staring at one of her boyfriends. 

Scott just shakes his head. “It’s not because of the money. He doesn’t want to be here and he wouldn’t let something stupid like money keep him here. Stiles has always been stubborn and now he has every right to be.” He raises his eyes and glares at Derek who looks away in guilt. “He doesn’t need us to poke and prod at a gaping wound that we left in him.” Scott pauses, pain filling his voice. “We should just leave him alone.”

“I don’t believe that,” Lydia curses her own voice barely above a whisper. “Stiles-”

“Scott’s right.” Derek cuts the Banshee off drawing looks from his other pack members. “Scott’s right…as much as we don’t want it to be, maybe it’s best if we just leave him be?”

“Then why did I go through all the trouble of hiring him?” Lydia snaps temper rising as she shrugs off Allison’s hand that had come to rest on her shoulder. “No. I refuse to give up on him. Stiles’ was, and is our friend. We failed him and it’s up to us to make it up to him.” 

Derek eyes the red head in front of him. He could see the fire in her eyes and it reminded him of the spark he once saw in Stiles’ eyes every time they argued. He remembered what it looked like when it went out as he had stared at his fathers dead body. Derek doesn’t know if he can destroy Lydia’s hope that Stiles would forgive them. Slowly the beta nods, even as Scott lets his head drop in disappointment. 

Scott sighs and looks out the large bay window that lets the afternoon light filter through the room. He knows the Pack meant well. That even Boyd, Erica and Isaac are to stay close to their houses so they don’t all rush at Stiles, begging him to come back. He knows that Cora was foaming at the mouth trying to drag an explanation out of her brother but Derek keeps brushing her off every time. They are all trying to put the past behind them and make up for their previous mistakes, but Scott knows Stiles. 

There’s no going back. 

Not to the way things were.

\--

“Please tell me you have good news?” 

The sound of Stiles voice makes Danny bolt up in his computer chair. He turns to the doorway to his office, a frown on his face as sleep tries to reclaim him. “Wha-Stiles?”

Stiles frowns as he tosses his jacket on the back of the other wheely chair, rolling over to the Hawaiian. “Dude, I asked you to do research, not kill yourself.” The Hunter gives him a lopsided grin. 

Danny shakes his head, stealthily trying to peel the post it note off of his cheek with out Stiles’ noticing. “ ‘m not killing myself…but I may have got caught up in this ‘Benefactor’s’ web.” He reaches out to wake his computer up as well, the bright screens making his eyes water. The hacker pauses and looks at Stiles. “Where’s my coffee?”

The younger man chuckles and motions over his shoulder. “In the kitchen. Along with a muffin and a sandwich.” But Danny is already up and out of his seat by ‘kitchen’. Stiles smirks and ignoring the indecent moan emanating from the other room, hops over into Danny’s chair to look over what the hacker has found. 

When Danny returns to his office, sandwich gone, with coffee and muffin in hand he takes up the seat Stiles has vacated. “You understand any of that?” he nods at the screens of his computer.

“A little bit,” Stiles shrugs. “But not enough to do it myself…and I don’t see any names popping up at me.”

“France.” Danny mutters taking a hunk out of his muffin and groaning at the pumpkin flavour.

Whiskey eyes narrow at his old friend in confusion. “I’ve heard it’s lovely?”

Danny rolls his eyes. Shoving Stiles hand away from the keyboard he brings up a page he had uncovered late last night that has been giving him a headache ever since. “This, this is a bank transfer from the person who hired you to kill Dunbar. It’s routed through a lot of servers and private banks so getting the actual bank account was a pain in the ass.” 

He clicks another shortcut and another window pops up on the right computer screen. “This is a copy of the wire transfers used by The Benefactor and his Deadpool. Every time confirmation of a kill was sent, the money would be transferred automatically. Now, the Benefactor used the same base bank account, but kept wiring it through different places so it looked like he wasn’t using the same address all the time.”

“I’m sensing a but,” Stiles winces, “Please tell me there’s a but, because all these illegal wire transfers are all over my head. Prang would get it but she likes math.”

Danny laughs, “Yes, there’s a but, I managed to trace back the information of both the Benefactor, and your mysterious ‘Moff Tarkin’,” he pauses as both of them exchange a weary look. As much as Stiles wants to thank Danny for actually understanding the reference, if any more Star Wars make it into their bad guys vocabulary neither of them will ever be able to enjoy the movie again. “There’s a bank account in France with that number and no name.”

Stiles nods and leans back in Danny’s chair, watching as the hacker uploads the files into a folder and places it into the transfer file so Stiles can access it from his computer. “I have a friend in Paris who may be able to dig a bit further; if you can’t find anything else in a few days I’ll give him a call.”

“Well, unless he has one kick ass super computer he’s probably not going to get any further than I did.” Danny sighs forlorn as he finishs off his muffin. “That guys transcoded all of his files and has firewalls and back doors had me going in circles for hours.”

“Yeah,” Stiles rubs at his eyes, suddenly tired all over again. Danny sends him a commiserating look. 

“Heard from a little birdie you had a run in with Derek.” Danny chuckles solemnly at Stiles loud groan as the Hunter buries his face in his hands. 

“Don’t even bring that up.” Stiles moans; he’s saved from any of Danny’s questions when the door to the apartment opens and two sets of footsteps head towards the office. “Expecting someone?”

Ethan and Aiden steps into the office, Ethan isn’t surprised at Stiles presence but Aiden isn’t nearly as calm as his brother.

“What the hell is he doing here?” the older twin snaps, claws coming out. 

Stiles raises an eyebrow at the older twin before looking over his shoulder at Danny, who merely sighs and shakes his head, “He’s kind of dramatic.” Stiles mutters turning his chair around to return his gaze to the computer. 

Danny chuckles at the indignant look on Aiden’s face giving the twins a smile. “Just let it go Aiden,” he advises reaching out to pat the older twin on the arm, “Just let it go.”

\--

Meanwhile across town, Prang strolls down a side street full of apartment buildings. Above her, if anyone was paying close enough attention, their eye would catch on a silver sheen near the top of her head. The astral projection of an older woman floating around her, going in and out of sight as she slips into the space between spaces, into the realm that is holding the telluric currents beneath Beacon Hills as she tries to trace any lingering use of magic.

Prang holds her cellphone to her ear but looks out the corner of her eye at the silver shape, “Any hits yet?” she asks making it look like she was talking into her phone instead of to herself.

The projection shakes her head before disappearing once more.

The huntress sighs, moving her phone into her pocket when she catches sight of a familiar head of dark hair. Familiar in the way that Prang has been watching the figure shadow her for the past few blocks. 

Vee reappears by her head and Prang takes the opportunity to move further down the street. She watches out of the corner of her eye as the other woman continues to move after her. Prang waits until she hits the corner of one of the apartment buildings that veers off onto another street and as soon as she turns the corner she takes off.

Prang ran, her shadow quickly giving chase with an angry shout. The apartment wall next to her head explodes and Prang almost hits the ground trying to dodge the attack. “Mother fucker!” She snaps, crouching down as Vee disappears from next to her. Prang duckes behind a large mailbox and whips her phone back out of her pocket. However before she can even type in a number the top of the mail box gets blown off and Prang feels her eye twitch at the few inches of space the blast mark was from her head. Scrambling to her feet the hunter keeps low, ducking down into the small space between apartment buildings just as the rest of the mailbox is destroyed. 

A shout full of frustration echoes behind her and Prang flings herself out onto the next street and into a solid body. Hazel eyes shoot up to meet the familiar warm brown of the girl who not two days ago attacked her. “Argent.” Prang growls.

Allison blinks in confusion at the womans harried state and is about to question her on it when a wave of energy flies between them only to explode a few feet away from them. Spinning around to look down the alley, Allison tries to get a glimpse of the person firing at them when she feels a pull on her arm before she starts to get dragged away from the next attack that crashes right where she was standing. 

Prang regrets saving her the moment her hand flies out but apparently Stiles motto of ‘just save them all and deal with it later’ is rubbing off on her in the most annoying way. Plus she thinks it might be frowned upon if she just pushes the other hunter back into the line of fire…mind you if it had been Hale, Prang would just stab him and leave him for the witch, or mage or whatever it is that’s tailing her. 

“Damn it.” Prang curses turning on her heel and she can feel Allison right behind her as they try to outrun the mad woman throwing fireballs and energy beams at them. She fucking hated magic. 

Allison reaches into her purse for her mini crossbow, readying it in moments as she whips around to fire back. Her first two shots miss but then a thin throwing knife sails over her shoulder and Allison takes advantage of her training to guess where the magic user is going to end up after Prang’s attack, to lodge an arrow into the mage’s shoulder.

The woman shrieks in pain, her features twisted with rage, eye colour slipping away to a dead white and Allison recoils swiftly almost running right into Prang who is clutching at another dagger fearfully. 

“Move!” the two female hunters shout in unison as the magic user lets out a burst of energy so intense it nearly blinds them. At the last moment Allison and Prang leap into another alley, this one smaller and danker than the last, both of them facing the wall to avoid getting burnt to a crisp.

The light from the attack has barely faded before Prang gets a grip in Allison’s jacket and is hauling the younger woman to her feet and dragging her out the other side of the street. She’s running on adrenaline now, and Prang follows her instincts, keeping the other girl close and as far away from the crazy as possible. Their boots pound into the pavement, neither of them stopping for rest as they race through the streets of Beacon Hills, passing larger and larger houses until they hit the seedier inn that Stiles has rented for them. 

Panting heavily, Prang finally releases her hold on Allison’s jacket, the dark haired girl almost collapsing to her knees in the parking lot in exhaustion. Allison watches as Prang reaches into her back pocket to pull out a small paper envelope. 

Prang drops to the ground and rips open the paper to pour the fine white grains of the sodium bicarbonate onto the thin, already existing line they had broken this morning on their way out. Tossing the paper envelope away when she finishes, Prang hauls herself back to her feet and heads for the staircase that will lead her to her room and hopefully a drink. She pauses however when she feels Allison move to follow her. Throwing a bitch face over her shoulder, which is slightly ruined by how sweaty she is and how heavily they both are breathing, Prang looks the younger hunter over. “Call your friends to come pick you up.”

Allison merely rolls her eyes and moves past Prang to head towards the motel room. “I’m tired, I’m thirsty, and I need to sit down.” She mutters putting her cross bow away.

The older woman huffs in annoyance but begrudgingly follows the Argent heir back to her room. Prang almost moans at the sight of her bed because even though it was only early evening, it had already felt like such a long day. Moving over to he mini fridge as Allison dumps her purse onto the small chair by the TV, Prang tosses the girl a bottle of water before going over to the window.

Looking out over the parking lot Prang watches as the female magic user slinks down the road towards the motel. Even from her distance Prang can see how singed around the edges the woman appears to be. “Well, we outran her, that’s got to count for something.” Prang sighs rubbing her forehead.

“That’s a lot of magic to survive,” Allison adds looking out the other side of the curtain. “She must be drawing magic from the Nemeton to withstand a blast like that, even if it was her own creation.”

“So I take it you didn’t happen to recognise her?" Prang can’t help but ask, looking over at Allison, but the other huntress shakes her head as she tosses the empty water bottle in her hand into the trash can. 

"No, ”Allison replies, “And I take it you didn't either?" 

Prang steps backward so she can slump onto Stiles bed also shaking her head. Just as she goes to speak a beep from her phone interrupts her and Prang looks down at the screen to see a text from Vee. ‘Got kicked out of B.Hills. What’s up? U Ok?’ it reads. A quick text back tells the other woman what has happened and Prang is surprised when another message is right on the heel of hers. 

“What’s wrong?” Allison asks from her spot still by the window, watching the female magic user pace along the salt line.

“One of our friends who was helping us via projection was kicked out of Beacon Hills during that fight and she can’t get back in.”

Allison frowns, “Projection? Astral projection?” At Prang’s nod Allison moves over towards the desk where a bunch of papers are strewn around from the crazy morning the group of hunters had had with all them all moving into one room. “You think the Benefactor may be a witch? Maybe the one who attacked you was part of it’s coven? I know they can put up shields that block that kind of stuff. It would explain why she was so strong."

Prang considers it for a moment, it would certainly explain last night in the forest with the Wendigo. “Maybe.” 

A computer beep draws both of their attention to the silver laptop on the other bed. Neither girl moves as it beeps again.

“You going to get that?” Allison raises a fine brow at the other hunter almost daringly. 

Prang shrugs trying to look nonchalant, knowing that if Allison wasn’t in the room she’s have been on the laptop already. "That's Stiles computer." 

The pause between the two is filled with questions and sarcasm that would never dared be uttered aloud.

“We never tell him.” Prang gives up and rolls off the bed and goes to sit at the table as Allison takes the other seat next to her with a smug grin. 

“Never.” Allison chuckles as she exchanges a small smile with Prang.

Prang types in Stiles password and follows the notification that leads her to his inbox. "Don't think that this means I've forgiven you for attacking me the other day." Prang adds with a stern glare at the dark haired girl next to her. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Allison tries not to smile as she nods. "How’s your arm anyway?" 

Prang rolls her eyes as she enters the password to Stiles e-mail. The one Stiles’ didn’t know any of his team knew, but they all did. “It’s fine. It’s not the worst injury I’ve dealt with. Besides, as much as I hate hospitals, the nurse who did them as really good.” She clicks on the new message and smirks. “Oh, looks like Danny found some information for us.”

“Danny?” Allison leans in further to look at all the information on the screen. Some forms she recognises, most she doesn’t. 

“Yeah, one of Stiles’ old friends. He’s really into computers and shit so we call him if we need someone smart.” Prang mutters thinking of her teams lack of computer talent. 

“Wait, you mean Danny Mahealani?!” Allison jerks back in shock.

Prang glances over at the other hunter in surprise, “You know him? I still can’t say his last name. Mind you it’s not as bad as Stiles’ first name.”

“We went to school with him.” Allison sits back in her chair eyes still on the screen when something jumps out at her. “Wait! Go back!”

“What is it?” Prang pauses in her scrolling and hits back until Allison’s finger shoots out to press into the screen. 

“There.” Allison reads over the information, heart doing double time in her chest. “It’s an account number. For a bank in France.”

“…ok?” the older woman questions, reading the past few sentences and scanning the account information. “It says here that Danny couldn’t track it.”

“I can.” 

Prang’s eyes shot up to Allison who stares at the screen with an ill look on her face. “You can?”

“You need to call Stiles and your friends. I need to call my pack. If this is what I think it is, we need all hands on deck for this.” Allison takes a deep breath and eyes Prang seriously. “That number…It’s an account that once belonged to my grandfather.”

\--

**Author's Note:**

> onlyoneexcuse over on tumblr. Send me a prompt if you want...i'm off to find food.


End file.
